I use the sisaket immigration office. Im on my second yearly o visa renewal. The officer made a point to show me I need to prove funds at my first 90 day. Which means a 2 hour drive ther and back to do it and I have to take 100 baht out or something and then update my bankbook so it shows the day I go to immigration. They also stapled instructions about it to the one they do at renewal time. So it may or may not be necessary. For me is is

@Chizel ******

thanks that may be possible now i have a lease to show the banks they were reticent to give me an account when i tried over the past few weeks for various reason but one did say had to have a lease so possible now. I have to do my 90 day soon and I have to show my balance has been over 800k in the account since I renewed. Once I do so ill have a backup and a plan. For now it's too close to muck with the account balance and cause other immigration issues. But soon I hope I'll be able to act.

@Chizel ******

banks seems to be dictating quite a bit these days however in talking with the lawyer and sending a rent free lease to the bank it did appear acceptable. They unlocked my account after 28 days if I counted correctly. So all seems well. A but silly this had to be done but whatever it's unlocked and no downstream affects i think. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Essentially it's a lease with no rent no security deposit no payment terms and penalty for late payments etc no financial component.

@Chizel ******

sure we can put anything but they have to accept it. Im trying something like what you suggest after talking with a lawyer. No value and some other bits and bobs to hopefully satisfy the requirement and not have downstream affects. Thanks for the suggestion im crossing my fingers it works.

@Chris ******

it may be more nuanced than this. Say hypothetically we do a lease for 5000 a month. To make this not lying ie not fraud I would have to pay 5000 a month to her and get a receipt or more likely transfer it to her. She would have to register the home as a rental (or a portion of the home) register for taxes report the 5000 a month as rental income etc. To make what is on the lease true and make is so if it were investigated it could be verified. Luckily a lawyer i consulted did have a possible solution to the issue which I have now tried. Hopefully it will be an acceptable document for them and all will be well fingers crossed. My ultimate goal here is to always do things above board and correctly no short cuts or hey it's thailand just do x ways of doing things. If I were asked or investigated in the future I want to know everything was truthful verifiable and doesn't jeopardize my status here. After all I have no idea what rules will be changed to or invented in the future. Not trying to lecture just letting you know how I plan to behave towards problems like this.

I hope so too thanks

@Stuart **********

I consulted with two lawyers on this and one has come up with a novel solution to the issue. I did everything that needed to be done and sent off the documents to the bank only moments ago. It's along the lines of your suggestion yes but with a sort of legal twist that should have them accept the document and not cause any downstream affects because there is nothing false in the document. Thanks for the suggestion. As an aside I asked them the same thing they said don't do a one baht a month lease or anything like that as it will raise a red flag. I did include the house book and Id for the banks copy If anything comes of it I'll update the group crossing fingers.

@Sasha **********

It's worth noting im getting the same treatment from other banks out here. Aside from one sucess with a severely limited account that has transfer limits so small its pretty much unusable which i suspect will not stay open given the amount of trouble it was to open taking 4 days and three visits to actually open with much tooing and frooing with their headquarters (and i asked can i make it more they said no) So far I've gotten no account unless you are married or we need a lease or we need a yellow book. They look at the residency certificate from immigration like they have never seen it before. None of these are actual requirements for an account it's just their rules as of the moment I asked. Im sure an agent could do it but im not really inclined to use an agent and circumvent the rules as it's a lie.

I suppose I could just get a place i won't live at for 6k a month or something and get a lease. But then what about the tm30 and living in two places and what downstream affects will THAT have when the rules change etc.

@Max *********

oh yes being married isn't a requirement except here it seems the whole your local office has it's own rules thing. We went to get one and instead got a lecture about not being married was bad etc and get married and you can have one. I have read others with the 30 year lease were fine too. I suppose that counts as a lease for their purposes which makes sense ok thank you.