Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Will drafting here in Thailand. We assist a number of clients every week frankly with Will drafting; we assist in assessing their sort of the situation involving their estate, putting together a Will and then in the unfortunate event of their passing, we can also assist with what is called succession processing through the Courts here in Thailand, oftentimes colloquially referred to in an American Common Law vernacular as “probate”. Here in Thailand no, we process it through the Courts in a very similar manner to the Probate Courts in America - not completely similar, but in many ways similar - and then in the event that the Court has no problem with the formalities associated with the Will, they are going to go ahead and adjudicate that Executors be named and disbursements be made. 

The question posed by this video is does marriage and divorce have an impact on Will drafting or enforcement? And absolutely it does. I think you can tell from the title, it's almost self-evident that it would. But yes, being legally married and that's a big deal here in Thailand, because Thailand does not utilize the Common Law so you have a lot of folks that may be in a relationship that might be determined to be what we would call a “Common-law” Marriage in the Common Law jurisdictions, but here in Thailand would not be considered that at all. So registration is important for both marriage and possible divorce.

The other thing to bear in mind is even if you have registered a divorce here in Thailand, if you haven't changed your Will, that could be very problematic in the event that you pass and want to leave your things to someone other than the person to whom you now have a registered divorce. So again, these issues associated with Will drafting, marriage and divorce can have a major interplay on how a Will is ultimately drawn up and what it is ultimately going to look like. It also has a major interplay on ultimate enforcement so if things change between the time of drafting the Will and ultimate adjudicate regarding succession, if something changes with regard to marriage registration, that may require a change in a Will as well.