We have been holidaying in Thailand for over 10yrs and decided that instead of paying expensive hotel costs, we would buy a home there and eventually spend the English winter there and return to the U.K for the summer, meanwhile either renting it out or using it for holidays. Our budget was £50,000. Our time was 3 weeks

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OPEN A BANK ACCOUNT

I thought this was going to be hard but Joy made one phone call to the                      " KASIKORN " bank and told them we would be arriving shortly and sure enough that's what happened. Again, this is where our Thai friends came to our aid as the bank needed a permanent address in Thailand and we used theirs until we could acquire some property. We had to open a Sterling account for money arriving from England and a Baht account  for Thai currency. Allow yourself at least a couple of hours in the bank, these people have one speed and that's slow !!

       MOVING MONEY TO THAILAND         

We took £10,000 to Thailand in £500 denomination travelers cheques to use as a deposit and the rest of the money was left with my son in law. In hindsight we should have fetched it all. Once we knew we were definitely buying a property I e.mailed him our stirling account details and he transferred it over at a cost of £35

 This is critical when exchanging large sums of money, when we arrived in Thailand the exchange rate was 67baht = £1 . When the money was finally deposited into my account it had dropped to 65.6 meaning our new home was costing us £1000 more. 

 Never let the seller know it is a foreigner that is buying or the price goes up, we let our Thai friends do the asking and then revealed ourselves later. We had decided that we wanted a detached house that did not need major work doing to it and our friends had been looking for one before we arrived in Thailand. Also this is where the solicitor comes in because land & house ownership needs to be verified before proceeding. We considered ourselves lucky that it was a policeman that was selling.

Next thing is to change over the names of Electricity & Water accounts, our solicitor took care of that and will pay any charges for us until we return to Thailand. We left £50 to cover these costs, each meter has a standing charge of just £1.50 per month if not used.

Again, house insurance should be taken out and again our solicitor arranged for a visit by the insurance agent for "NATION INS & LIFE to our new home to discuss policies, they take photos & measurements of the property. We took out a "Building & Contents" policy which would pay us well over the odds should we have to make a claim. This cost us £300 for 3 years cover.

  This was taken while I was signing the will and another taken as my wife signs, these are then attached to the will and sealed in an envelope that is signed across the seal and placed in her safe.