New rules for farang fathers of Thai children wanting O Visa

[advocate]

I have always just used my son's birth certificate which lists me as the father for visa extensions.

When I originally applied, and this is still true, there is a presumption at law that if the parents are not legally married or they live separate, that the child lives with the mother, and so the father is not then the primary supporter of the child as required under the visa rules.

So, prior to my first application, I adopted my own son. When applying for the adoption, I was told a DNA test was required, but during an interview for the adoption process, was told the DNA would not be required as the officers could see that he was obviously my son just by appearance.

Crazy!

[bapak]

.....as the officers could see that he was obviously my son just by appearance.

Crazy!

That is leaving open a wide range of interpretation

[advocate]

bapak

yes I see what you mean. What I meant to say was that having to adopt my own son to have any rights as a father is Crazy!

[advocate]

To futher clarify, the application to adopt was heard at the Prachuap Khirikhan courthouse. Price about 25,000 BT and it took 1 year.

[Spitfire]

This was posted elsewhere but might be worth posting on here too.

Dear News Editor

I would be obliged if you would post the following message from the Royal Thai Consulate, Hull UK regarding the Expat Forum Topic "Non Imm Visa When You Have Thai Child":-

"Message from the Royal Thai Consulate in Hull (UK).
Please note that it is no longer possible to obtain a non immigrant visa from the Royal Thai Embassy or from any of the Royal Thai Consulates in the UK on the basis that you are the father of a child living in Thailand even if you possess the child's birth certificate which shows you as the father. To be eligible to apply for this type of visa you must also be married to the mother of the child and have an official marriage certificate."

Can you also please inform your readers that they must never post their passport from Thailand to any other country for any reason because there will not be any evidence in their passport to show that they exited Thailand.

Thank you and kind regards

Alan P Taylor
Hon Consul
Royal Thai Consulate
4 Priory Court
Saxon Way
Hessle
HULL
HU13 9PB

[advocate]

This also means that if you are an unmarried father on visa extension here, and you forget to apply for a re entry permit before leaving, that you would have to get a new O visa from another country, which you would no longer qualify for.

[buksida]

What I meant to say was that having to adopt my own son to have any rights as a father is Crazy!

That's preposterous, next they'll be demanding that luuk kreung's need a visa to stay in Thailand to cover their farang halves!

[JimmyGreaves]

bapak

yes I see what you mean. What I meant to say was that having to adopt my own son to have any rights as a father is Crazy!

Not 100% sure about this now. The birth certificate is not enough, however I have had to get a legal document from the Amphur in Hua hin that gives me the right of fatherhood. I had to get passport verification from the embassy document, get this translated and then get these stamped at the ministry of foreign affairs in Bangkok. After that presented these with Birth certificate + Mother + Daughter + house douments etc etc. My daughter confirmed who I and my partner were we signed documents (My daughter also 5yo signed a few) at the end of all this got the official document that says I'm the legal father. Immigration accept this as have just been. However have to wait 30 days before the 90 day stamp expires before I can apply

[lomuamart]

Applying for the extension within the last 30 days is normal, JG.

[dtaai-maai]

Alan P Taylor
Hon Consul
Royal Thai Consulate
HULL

And since when can a Brit be a consul for Thailand, even if it's an honorary position? That also seems preposterous to me.

[advocate]

My original application was 3+ years ago, and the only way at the time for me to get the extension was to adopt my son. My wife and I did the Buddha ceremony but have not registered the marriage. The same as the majority of Thais, including the rest of her family.

The rules may or may not still be different for those seeking a first extension, depending on if you have legally registered the marriage or not. Or perhaps they have scrapped the adoption requirement since my application.

There are advantages to adopting your Thai born children, but that is for another thread.

[STEVE G]

What I meant to say was that having to adopt my own son to have any rights as a father is Crazy!

That's preposterous, next they'll be demanding that luuk kreung's need a visa to stay in Thailand to cover their farang halves!

Actually, that's pretty much what happens in Indonesia; if you're married and have a child, the child automatically takes the nationality of the father. My daughter from a past relationship is there and is Indonesian as we weren't married but if we had been, she wouldn't be allowed to stay in Indonesia with her Mother without a visa of some sort.

[margaretcarnes]

JG,

I believe there's some Thai court paperwork you can get here proving that you're the father of your child. DNA tests may be necessary. I'm not really up on this though. It might be that Embassies and consulates will accept this for O visas in the instances where the Thai mother and foreign father are not married, have divorced or the mother has died. That's speculation though.
However, this appears to be an attempt to stop a Thai mother putting down "Joe Bloggs" as the father, when he isn't. Joe Bloggs then gets O visas back home even though not married.

The statement issued by the Hull Consul certainly doesn't mention such Thai court proof Lomu. I wonder just how much power the Consuls have if they could choose to ignore court documents? In fact where has the directive come from in the first place! If it is only the UK Consuls at the moment - and we haven't heard anything to the contrary - is it a UKBA/Government directive? If so why pick on Thailand (although I suppose we should know the answer to that.)

If it IS an attempt to prevent mothers putting 'Joe Bloggs' on birth certs to aide the issue of O visas it surely must have come from the Thai end. It is also pretty poorly thought through. There can't be huge numbers of British men daft enough to allow their names to go on a Thai birth cert in return for no hassle visas - can there? There must be many more who are potentially on the run from the UK who could be targetted to much better effect.

And maybe most significantly, why does this rule apply only to men?

[Pleng]

Has anybody tried contacting the consulates for clarification??

[Takiap]

If all of this is indeed true, then it just makes it evermore clear just how hypocritical this society is in general. What happened to the importance of family virtues, and even more twisted.....what about the right of children. Surely a child has a legal right to see their father.


Reading between the lines, I see it as the Thai government saying that as Farang, we deserve whatever we get as far as a wife is concerned. If she turns out to be a waste head gambler, a drunk, a junkie and a prostitute, you, the Farang dog, will either put up with her, or bugger off to your own country. But what about the child? Maybe Mom can't take care of the child because she's a total waste of space. Then get you child a passport, and take your half breed offspring with you.


Above, is how I view this latest development, a I'd be really surprised if I were to discover I'm wrong.



Anyway, there's nothing anyone can do about it, but if you're married with kids, just make sure you have a backup plan in place.