Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Wills and Probate in Thailand and things like pensions, people's Social Security for example, most notably the death benefits associated with Social Security here in Thailand and when I say Social Security, I mean US Social Security. I'm going to kind of do this video from kind of an American angle so take it for what it's worth. It could be useful for expats of other stripes but I'm going to kind of do this from the American perspective. I thought of making this video after reading recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Foreigners and Thai Law: the changing Pattaya scenario. Quoting directly: "Much has changed over the past 30 or 20," (I think they meant 20 or 30 years, it says 30 or 20 years but okay either way same, same but different) "much has changed over the past 30 or 20 years. Many of the western expats who retired here in the past and married Thai women have now died. Thus we are much more focused these days on Wills, Probate and overseas pension entitlement (if any) for the widows." 

Yeah I've been seeing a lot of estate planning going on. Look, the fact of the matter is the demography here amongst the expat community is shifting and quite honestly it's shifting rather radically, rather quickly actually. The odd thing for somebody in my position, so I'm a little over 40 and I've lived out here for 17 years, I'm kind of an atypical just generally, because I've sort of been here as long as I have and I started off as young as I did. That's not unheard of. There are other folks that are in similar circumstances to me. But what is sort of interesting where I feel like the odd man out a lot is demographically, there is not a ton of people in my age group. I find myself, I'm either the oldest guy in most rooms or I'm the youngest guy in most rooms that I find myself,  because I oftentimes, when I first got out here I hung out with all old hands, I mean literally. Really guys that went all the way back. I knew people that went all the way back to pre-Vietnam; now most of them have shuffled off this mortal coil at this point, but the demography, the demographics are changing. We're seeing a lot of younger folks coming in but we are dealing with a lot of what is sometimes colloquially referred to as "probate". That is actually a term from the Common Law vernacular; the Thais use a term which is more akin to the term "succession". Okay different words for, I won't say the same thing because the processes are different and bear in mind I am an American Attorney, I'm not a Thai Attorney so I am looking at this sort from an outsider's Comparative Law perspective. But yeah fundamentally it's about "is my stuff going to go to the people I want it to go to in the event of my passing. I have drafted up a Will to that effect; we need to process it through the Court System."

So yeah, in the Common Law vernacular that is called Probate, here it's called succession, we are seeing a lot of those cases too and quite honestly I think it is a byproduct, sort of the upshot if you will of just the demographic situation we're seeing on the ground here in the Kingdom of Thailand.