If you lose capacity rather than die
Not sure where to start? Start here
Written by Greg Berryman. Sources last checked 8 August 2026.
When you die in Thailand there is at least a process. When you lose capacity, there is a gap.
If this is happening now and the person is in hospital, start with what to do when someone is hospitalised in Thailand.
Every box with an underlined heading opens the page that explains it.
Does a power of attorney survive incapacity in Thailand?
No. Powers of attorney in Thailand fall under the agency provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code, sections 797 to 832. They are built for specific transactions, and under section 826 an agency ends on the death, incapacity or bankruptcy of either party. There is no durable or enduring power of attorney in Thai law.
The position on foreign lasting powers of attorney, and the question of the medical powers of attorney Thai firms sell, are set out on power of attorney in Thailand.
Who can act for you if you lose capacity in Thailand?
Nobody, until a court appoints them. Thai law's answer is an application somebody makes after the fact.
Under section 28 of the Civil and Commercial Code a court may declare a person incompetent and place them under guardianship. Under section 32 it may declare them quasi-incompetent and place them under curatorship. It takes two petitions, two hearings, and at least three months. Who can apply, who a court will appoint, and what a guardian can then do, including controlling who has contact with the ward, is on guardianship and curatorship in Thailand.
Does your will help if you lose capacity?
Not here. A will operates on death and does nothing while you are alive.
Somebody with a properly drafted Thai will, a foreign will and a clear set of wishes still has nobody able to pay their electricity bill. See wills in Thailand, and which country's law applies.
What happens to the bank account and the bills meanwhile?
Nobody can operate the bank account. Rent, utilities, insurance and care costs keep falling due. A lease, a vehicle, a phone contract, a business interest, all frozen the same way.
In practice the person providing care often meets those costs from their own money while waiting for a court, because nothing else can reach the patient's funds. Nobody is obliged to do that, and doing it creates no right to be repaid on its own. Keep a record of what was paid and when, because a guardian appointed later has to account for the ward's money and that record is the only evidence of what went out.
What happens to your Thai visa if you lose capacity?
Nobody has established what happens.
Staying in Thailand on a long-stay extension assumes a person who can sign forms, give instructions and hold money in their own account. Somebody who cannot sign can do none of those things, and for a retirement extension the funds have to sit in the applicant's own account, which nobody can operate.
Whether that becomes an immigration problem is not established. Visa agencies handle extensions and reporting for clients routinely without the client attending in person, so the simple version of the worry, that you must appear and cannot, is wrong at least in Phuket. What is unresolved is whether an agency can continue to act for a client who can no longer instruct it, and whether a court-appointed guardian can sign immigration applications for the ward. Both are questions for a Thai lawyer, and the first is worth putting to a visa agency directly.
What can you arrange in advance?
A living will. The one instrument here that works without a court and without your family's agreement, though it reaches only the terminal stage of life. How to make one, and what it cannot do, is on living wills in Thailand.
Marriage. It puts a spouse at the top of the list of people who may apply, and makes them next of kin for medical purposes. Available to same-sex couples since 23 January 2025.
Telling people in advance. A partner who knows to expect a three-month court process behaves very differently from one who finds out at a hospital desk.
What can no document do?
Put your partner in charge of your property and your affairs. Only a court can do that, and only after the fact.
What happens to them if you do not, and how that differs depending on which of you is Thai, is on what happens to your partner.
What if the person dies?
A guardianship ends with the person it was made for, and a different court process starts.
A guardian has no authority over an estate. Somebody has to be appointed estate administrator, which is a separate application under a separate part of the Code, and the bank account stays frozen throughout. See what to do when someone dies in Thailand, the court order that unfreezes a Thai bank account and what an estate administrator has to do in Thailand.
What is in the guide?
This page covers the gap. The guide contains an asset and document inventory, the next of kin authorisation letter in the wording the embassies ask for, and separate modules for British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Irish citizens, because the six governments define next of kin differently.
Sources
- Thai Civil and Commercial Code, sections 28 to 36 on incompetence, guardianship, quasi-incompetence and curatorship, and sections 797 to 832 on agency, including section 826 on the events that extinguish an agency.
- National Health Act, B.E. 2550 (2007), section 12, on the right to make a living will and the protection given to health personnel who act on one. Published in the Government Gazette, Volume 124, Part 16a, 19 March 2550. English translation published by the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University.
- Civil and Commercial Code Amendment Act (No. 24), B.E. 2567 (2024), the marriage equality amendment, published in the Royal Gazette, Volume 141, Part 58 Kor, 24 September 2024, in force 120 days later on 23 January 2025. Thai text, which is the only version with legal force.
- That a guardian must account for the ward's property is drawn from the guardianship provisions of the Code. Whether a person who met the ward's costs before a guardian was appointed can recover them is not addressed here and is a question for a Thai lawyer.
- The immigration section describes what a long-stay extension requires of an applicant. No government source states what happens where the applicant loses capacity, and this site makes no claim about it. That an agency can handle extensions and reporting without the client attending is drawn from ordinary practice in Phuket and may not hold in every province.
- Code sections are cited from published English translations. 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.