And of course proof of savings/income

CM only require copies of passport, visa and last extension, departure card, 90 day and TM30

The UK Embassy costs about £50 for the certificate and takes about a week. All done by post. They do request to see evidence of basis/source of income though

@JD ******

Does he mean the cost of getting the letter from national Embassy?

When I went for my extension, I turned up at CM immigration at 4am and was 5th in queue. I was finished at around 11am. My friend paid for visa assistance and had an appointment at 2pm and was in and out within 20 mins (and chauffeured from the visa agent's office in town and back).

In CM, there seem to be two categories of visa assistance for retirement extensions (and significantly different costs). One for providing the financial proof (no comment...), and the other simply for visa assistance (i.e. filling in your form, and giving you an appointment at immigration, which is otherwise impossible, and if required taking you there and back from their offices). I understand that the first is 23k or something and the second is about 7k

There is some debate about the length of validity of an IDP, but generally, if you are here longer than 3 months, you should get a local (i.e. Thai) DL, which is easy to get if you already have a foreign DL. If you are driving on a foreign IDP as a resident, and need to make a claim, you may find that your insurance company (if they check and/or know the rules) may refuse to cover you for not having a 'valid' DL

Possibly inputted some information incorrectly or some disconnect with the information they have registered. That's all I had. No problems at all when turned up in person

I appreciate why people go this route (and there but by the grace of the great spaghetti monster etc.) but just pointing out that there are potentially quite serious consequences if they get caught out (and hence explains why the costs of going down this route are so high)

Your friend is lucky they weren't blacklisted and deported for fraudulent paperwork so could have been worse