Advice from the Aussiies.

gotlost said:
How do you certify your Australian passport for legal purpose when in Thailand.
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Sorry GL, not sure I fully understand your question. If you mean how do you certify a copy of your passport then I am your man! I recently asked my bank to amend their records to show my new address. Surprise! Surprise! "No can do" they said without a certified copy of my passport and to prove their point they gave me two pages of utter crap on how to do this. In short, you have to get your copy of the passport certified by either one of the following:

1. Lawyer, Notary Public or Actuary who is a member of a recognised professional body.

2. Accountant or Tax Adviser who is a member of a recognised professional body.

3. Serving Police or Customs Officer.

4. Member of Judiciary.

5. Senior Civil Servant.

6. An Embassy, Consulate or High Commission of the country of issue of the documentary evidence of identity.

7. Director, Officer or Manager of a regulated financial services business (e.g. Bank Manager) operating in an equivalent jurisdiction to Gibraltar - (WTF has that got to do with Thailand???)

Aahh! They then list a number of jurisdictions that are considered to be the same as Gibraltar and, guess what, Thailand is not one of them.

I was not impressed I can tell you. Of all the people on the list only the Embassy in Bangkok met the criteria and I told the bank that I would be 'buggered' if they thought I was going to waste my time, effort and money to obtain a certified copy of my passport from the British Embassy in Bangkok just so they could change my address on their computer system.

Hope this helps.
 
Cent said:
Wouldn't a local Thai lawyer/notary be sufficient?

Mike
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My understanding is that NO Thai notary is recognized by most countries in the world as Thailand did not sign up to the international agreement.
 
The other information on the 'attached sheets' from the bank asked for the whole life story of each of the listed signatories including; full name, position held, professional affiliation, address, contact information, official stamp 'et al'. They also wanted to contact said individuals to confirm that I was who I said that I was. A bank manager seemed a good choice to countersign a coy of the passport but then Thailand was not on the list of countries operating in an equivalent jurisdiction to Gibraltar. I surmised that if a Thai bank manager was not acceptable then most of the other people on the list could also be ruled out. Besides, who would remember me a few weeks later when they received a letter or telephone from the UK bank, in English, to confirm my identity.

All this made me think that the only acceptable signatory on the entire list was the British Consular Section in Bangkok. I informed the bank that I was not prepared to go to the time, trouble and expense to obtain such a letter just to change my address. The young lady at the end of the telephone said there was another option if I had telephone banking - which I do. "Oh!' she said, "that's easy then, give me the 2nd and 4th letters of your secret password and I can make the changes over the telephone." WTF - over!
 
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