Thailand Visas : The TM-30 hassle
The TM-30 is a document that must be filed by a land-owner to report that a foreigner is staying at that address. It must be filed within 24 hours of the foreigner "checking in" to that address or the land owner can face a fine and the foreigner can face problems keeping their visa if it is not done. So what's the big problem?
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Filling out the form isn't really that big of a deal, it is only one page. The problem comes from other sources depending on the perspective. I have been subjected to these forms as both a property owner and a property renter and I promise to keep this brief.
The sheer volume of them is overwhelming as a guestroom renter
In my 20 room guesthouse it was extremely routine for our patrons to stay only a couple of days and in the busy times of years we might have 30 or 40 people checking out and being replaced by the same amount of new people. Since the customers can't be counted on to write legibly or to even give the correct information, we would have to do these forms for them (remember, the penalty lies mostly on the property owner for doing this wrong) and then my staff had to drive to the immigration office and wait for a staff member to be available which could vary dramatically depending on what was going on at immigration that day.
Basically, this was a massive hindrance to my business because I operated with a very small staff and now I had one person who was basically unable to do the other aspects of their job for 3 to 5 hours of the day. I can't even imagine what larger hotels must go through since every single person (not just the mother or father of a family, for instance) must be registered separately.
As a renter, the supplementary documentation is not so easy to get from your landlord
As an individual house renter, every time I leave the country and come back in, I have to re-submit this document and even though my address has not changed, I have to provide a copy of the lease (in Thai), a copy of the house ownership papers, and a copy of the owners current ID card or Thai passport. For me, I don't leave the country often but I honestly do not see the point if my lease hasn't expired and of course I am going to return to the same address, i'm not just going to abandon all of my belongings (and my dog) because I go on a beach trip to Bali for a week.
This is just one more thing that lately, Thai Immigration has been irritating their expat population with. There is a lot of chatter about moving to a different country. Many people are focusing on Vietnam or Cambodia where they seem to be a bit more welcoming to a permanent expat population.
The thing is, I really like Thailand and I would prefer to not leave. I really enjoy this country but I just don't understand what motivates the government to be so invasive about where everyone is. The official reason is something dumb like
"because: terrorism"
But honestly guys, is a terrorist even going to bother with this sort of form? The sheer volume of these pieces of paper at the immigration offices around the country all but guarantees that the database isn't properly updated because it would take an army of data entry personnel just to put it in the system. I don't believe it is recorded at all but is just another hoop to make the farang jump through (by the way, "farang" is the slightly offensive but widely used term for anyone who is not Thai, mostly western white people).
I say this because once when dealing with another government office that demands loads of paperwork for this and that I went into said office to ammend my record bc i thought that was the right thing to do and they couldn't even find my file or any record of me in the system at all. It also didn't seem to matter to any of them and they just made me a new one.
It's rare to find myself thinking of the US bureaucracy as particularly pleasant, but man do I appreciate them a little more now than I did before reading this.
I reckon if more than a few expats leave, they might be forced to review such an inconveniencing law
they really seem to be going after the retirees lately with the various changes to immigration law. I am not near old enough for that but I really don't understand why they would target the most affluent group of "residents" and try to compel the to leave.
Most of my pals are on retirement visas and virtually everyone is looking at other options for countries to live in instead of this one. Tragic.
"it would take an army of data entry personnel just to put it in the system" this says about the papers...and the work.....LOL
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