Affairs In Order Thailand: the guide

This is what the people around you will be holding when they walk into a Thai hospital, a district office or your embassy and are asked a question they cannot answer: where the accounts are, who counts as next of kin, what that particular government requires before it will act.

Nothing in it is a document you sign. There is no will to execute and no power of attorney to witness. Those come from a lawyer, they are inexpensive, and this does not replace them.

The site is free. This is the part you cannot assemble yourself.

What it contains

Asset and document inventory. A structured record of what exists and where it is: accounts, policies, property, contracts, the people to call, and where the keys and passwords are held rather than what they are. Much of the delay after a death is not the court. It is finding the documents the court asks for.

Next of kin authorisation letter. A Thai hospital will not release a body without a letter from the embassy, and the embassy will not issue one to a person it does not recognise as next of kin. This is the written authority that lets someone else act, in the wording the UK government publishes, with notes on who counts as next of kin, what the application asks for, and what each of the other five governments requires instead.

Nationality modules for British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Irish citizens. Fourteen pages. The six governments define next of kin differently, and that difference decides who can collect a body. A module each on the release letter, post-mortems, registering the death at home, and what your embassy will not do, with the two comparison tables at the front. All six included, because you should not have to know which one you need before you have read anything.

All in Word and PDF, so you can fill them in on a laptop or print them and use a pen.

What it is not

• It is not a will, and it does not replace one. A professionally drafted Thai will is inexpensive and necessary.
• It is not legal advice, and it does not apply the law to your circumstances.
• It does not give anyone a legal right that Thai law withholds. Nothing can.

How it works

One purchase, immediate download. No subscription, no account to cancel, no upsell.

You are not buying a snapshot. Thai procedure and embassy practice change, and the file is corrected when they do. Every buyer is sent a new download link at that point, at no charge and with nothing to renew. Buy it once and you hold the current version, not the version that was current on the day you bought it. If an update email does not reach you, write to me and I will send it.

Support is deliberately limited. Corrections are always welcome and always free. What is not offered is advice on one person's facts, by any channel. That is what a Thai lawyer is for.