Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Wills in the context of basically US Immigration. What are we talking about here? 

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon especially among some of my older clients where they get especially a little up there in age, and usually they have been married for quite some time, but they never have gotten their significant other any type of visa to the United States; sometimes this happens in the context that they never got legally married. As I have discussed in other videos, in Thailand it is a Civil Law jurisdiction so unlike Common Law jurisdictions, there is no notion of a Common Law spouse, you are either affirmatively married and registered as such, or not. And there is no sort of again this nebulous notion of Common Law Marriage which is nebulous by the way even in Common Law jurisdictions and lay people don't really understand the nebulous nature of that. For example, Common Law marriages are only really created in the event of divorce because the Court has to recognize the Common Law marriage in order to create the divorce and folks don't really ever understand that. 

That being said, what we are talking about here though is, I actually unfortunately am dealing with this in a couple of cases here recently, where I am dealing with some guys that are older; they are doing basically their estate planning - they are planning out their Wills - and they are also saying I need to go ahead and get immigration benefits for my spouse as well. I want to make sure that my spouse has access to the United States. What are the consequences if I pass away and my spouse does not yet have a Visa? 

Well there is if you will a "remedy" to that, especially if you are married. It is a little bit of a different analysis as it pertains to fiancés and Fiancé(e) Visas, but if you are legally married, then in the event of passing it is possible to obtain what some call a Widow or Widower Visa so long as application for such a travel document occurs within two years of the passing of the American citizen spouse and they are legally married, it may be possible to go ahead and file for Immigration benefits or convert ones pre-existing petition for Immigration benefits over to a Widower Visa application. So there is something out there for those folks and I have seen this a lot when people are again coming to me for estate planning and they are thinking about things like "oh I have certain assets in the United States I would want this person to have access to", for example, real estate is a big one in the US and they say it would be best if they have an immigration benefit as well as estate planning instruments like a Thai Will or an American Will, and for that reason the topic of the Widower Visa comes up. 

So this is one of those things that unfortunately is not something you really want to think about in your day-to-day, but it can be very important when it comes to making decisions and making plans for one's loved one in the event of one's passing.