What an estate administrator has to do in Thailand
Not sure where to start? Start here
Written by Greg Berryman. Sources last checked 12 August 2026.
The court order gives you authority over somebody else's property. The Civil and Commercial Code sets out what you have to do with it, by when, and what happens if you do not.
How the appointment itself works, and how long it takes, is on the court order that unfreezes a Thai bank account. What follows it is below.
Every box with an underlined heading opens the page that explains it.
When does the job start?
When the court's appointment order takes effect. Being named as executor in a will is a recommendation to the court, and the authority comes from the order.
The clock in section 1728 runs from one of three points: the death, if you already knew you were named; the day you find out you were named, if that comes later; or the day the court's appointment takes effect. Which one applies to you decides every date below.
What is an estate administrator in Thailand required to do?
Section 1719 sets the job in one line. You have the right and the duty to do everything necessary to carry out what the will says, expressly or by implication, and to administer and distribute the estate generally.
In practice that comes down to four things: find out what there is, find out who is entitled, settle what is owed, and hand over the rest. The Code then adds the specific duties.
Make an inventory. Section 1728 requires you to begin within fifteen days. Section 1729 requires it finished within one month of that starting point, in front of at least two witnesses who have an interest in the estate. The court can extend that month, but only if you ask before it runs out. Anyone disqualified from witnessing a will under section 1670 cannot witness the inventory either.
Find the people entitled and tell them. Section 1725 requires you to take proper steps to seek out interested persons, and to notify them within a reasonable time of what the will says about them. That is an active duty. Waiting to be contacted is not doing it.
Do it yourself. Section 1723 requires you to act personally. You can only act through somebody else where the will allows it, the court allows it, or the circumstances require it.
Account for it. Section 1732 requires the administration and distribution account completed within one year of the same starting date, unless the will, a majority of the heirs, or the court fixes a different period.
What are the deadlines?
| What you have to do | By when |
|---|---|
| Begin the inventory of the estate | 15 days, section 1728 |
| Finish the inventory, with two interested witnesses | One month from that start, section 1729 |
| Complete the administration and the account | One year from that start, section 1732 |
Set against how long the appointment itself takes, those periods are short. The reported timings for reaching a bank account run to several months, and the one year in section 1732 starts from the section 1728 date rather than from the day the money arrives. If the year will not be enough, the extension has to come from the will, a majority of the heirs, or the court.
Are you liable for the deceased's debts?
They come out of the estate, and settling them is part of the job under section 1719.
The point most people want answered first is whether they are taking on somebody else's debts personally. Under section 1601 an heir is not liable beyond the property that comes to them. An estate with more debts than assets does not become a bill for the family, and being appointed administrator is not an agreement to pay anybody out of your own pocket.
What you can become liable for is your own conduct in the job, under section 1720.
Two practical points. Creditors are among the people who may petition for an administrator to be appointed in the first place, under section 1711, so a creditor may already be involved before the family is. And distributing to the heirs before the debts are settled is the mistake that turns an orderly estate into a dispute.
How Thai law ranks competing creditors, and what happens where the estate cannot meet them all, is an open question. It is one for a Thai lawyer, and it is the point at which one should be involved if that has not happened already.
Can you be paid for doing it?
Not out of your own decision. Section 1721 says an administrator is not entitled to take remuneration from the estate unless the will permits it or a majority of the heirs do.
That is separate from expenses properly incurred in administering the estate. Whether a particular payment counts as an expense of the administration or as remuneration is exactly the kind of question that ends in an argument, and it is worth settling in writing with the heirs before you spend anything substantial.
What is an estate administrator not allowed to do?
Deal with yourself. Section 1722 stops you entering into any transaction where your own interest is opposed to the estate's, unless the will or the court permits it. Buying an asset from the estate, or selling one to it, is the obvious case.
Treat the estate's money as available. Section 1720 makes you answerable to the heirs under the agency provisions of the Code, sections 809, 812, 819 and 823, applied to your position. Between them those cover reporting on what you are doing, liability for damage caused by your own fault, using the money for yourself, and rendering accounts. Section 831 applies to your dealings with third parties.
The practical consequence is that this is somebody else's money and you will be asked to show where it went. Keep every receipt, every bank statement, and a note of every decision, from the first day.
What if there is more than one administrator?
Section 1726 says that where there are several administrators, decisions are taken by majority unless the will provides otherwise. Where the vote is tied, any interested person can ask the court to decide.
That matters for a foreign estate, because two administrators in different countries who disagree cannot simply proceed. A deadlock goes back to a Thai court, with the delay that implies.
Can an estate administrator be removed?
Yes, and on two separate grounds.
Section 1727 lets any interested person apply to the court to discharge an administrator for neglect of duty or other reasonable cause, at any point before the distribution is complete.
Section 1731 is narrower and aimed at the inventory. If it is not made in due time and form, or the court finds it unsatisfactory because of gross negligence, dishonesty or obvious incapability, the court may discharge you on that basis alone.
The same section 1727 lets you resign for reasonable cause, but only with the court's permission. Once you have taken the job you cannot simply put it down.
When are you finished?
When the heirs have the account and the documents behind it. Section 1733 provides that an approval, a release from liability, or any other agreement about the section 1732 account is not valid unless the account has been delivered to the heirs together with the documents relating to it.
A signature from an heir who has not seen the paperwork does not protect you. Section 1733 also carries a five year period running from the end of the administratorship, and how that period operates is a question for a Thai lawyer.
What does this mean for a foreign estate?
Three things make the job harder than the sections suggest.
The inventory has to cover assets that may sit in two countries, and only the Thai ones are within a Thai court's reach. Which country's law governs which asset is on wills in Thailand, and which country's law applies.
The heirs you have to seek out under section 1725 may be people you have never met, in another country, identified by a list of statutory classes rather than by name. See who can legally act.
And the section 1729 inventory needs two witnesses who have an interest in the estate, which in a foreign estate can mean two people who are not in Thailand.
Get the dates written down on the day the order issues, and keep records from the beginning rather than assembling them a year later.
What is in the pack?
The pages on this site are free and stay free.
After a Death in Thailand is for someone dealing with a death that has already happened. It is printable, and it contains a checklist that runs in order, the phone numbers in the order you need them, a sheet to record who you spoke to and what they said they would do, the next of kin authorisation letter in the wording the embassies ask for, and separate sections by nationality.
Sources
- Thai Civil and Commercial Code, Book VI, Title IV, on the administration and distribution of an estate. Section 1719 on the administrator's rights and duties; section 1720 applying sections 809, 812, 819, 823 and 831 to the administrator's liability; section 1721 on remuneration; section 1722 on transactions where the administrator's interest is adverse to the estate's; section 1723 on acting personally; section 1725 on seeking out and notifying interested persons; section 1726 on several administrators and majority decision; section 1727 on discharge and resignation; section 1728 on the fifteen days to begin an inventory and the dates from which it runs; section 1729 on the one month to complete it, the two interested witnesses, and the application of section 1670; section 1731 on discharge for a defective inventory; section 1732 on the one year to complete the administration and the account; and section 1733 on approval and release.
- Thai Civil and Commercial Code, section 1601, that an heir is not liable beyond the property devolving to them, and section 1711 on who may petition for an administrator, including a creditor.
- Section numbers and their content are taken from published English translations of the Code, cross-checked between more than one translation. No official English text of Thai legislation exists. Only the Thai text as published in the Royal Gazette has legal force. Thai legal review of these sections is under way. Section numbers are given so the provisions can be checked directly. See about this site.
- The operation of the five year period in section 1733, the line between recoverable expenses of administration and remuneration under section 1721, and the ranking of competing creditors against an insufficient estate are not settled on this page and are questions for a Thai lawyer.