Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing business nominees, real estate in Thailand and Wills. We are discussing this in the context, I'll dive in here real quick into an article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Legal issues threaten Koh Samui maid's claim to late employer's estate. We have discussed this case previously; this was really kind of a sad situation. It looked like a foreigner committed suicide here in Thailand and then their maid was set to inherit a fairly sizable estate from this foreign national, but it turns out that this estate was structured in such a way, that it looks like it's in violation of Thai Law. Quoting directly: "Nutwalai Pupongta, the trusted housemaid of a French businesswoman who committed suicide in Koh Samui on April 29, might not be able to inherit 100 million Baht in assets from her former employer as police have found the deceased illegally ran businesses and owned luxury villas via nominees." 

So, something we have talked about in other videos, Nominees are explicitly illegal in Thailand, so using them to own, run businesses via a front, that's illegal. Meanwhile, it's also illegal for foreign nationals to own land. So, in many ways it's doubly illegal to utilize a corporation with nominees, in order for a foreigner to effectively own/control Thai land here in Thailand; that's also a problem. Both of those things alone are illegal and on top of one another, they sort of compound the illegality as it were. Quoting further: "Following a seven-month-long investigation into matters involving the suicide of 59-year-old Catherine Delacote, authorities have filed charges against multiple entities and individuals. The investigation has implicated two companies, GVNE Co Ltd and Maxikate Co Ltd, in acting as nominee entities for Delacote to acquire plots of land in Thailand illegally. These actions violate Thailand's foreign land ownership laws, which prohibit foreigners from owning land. Charges were also filed against two Thai individuals, Thongsai Katisuk, 50, and Ratchaprapa Soreda, 36, who are accused of aiding Delacote in acquiring the land through fraudulent means, including filing false statements to officials and holding shares on behalf of a foreign national in violation of Thai Law. The investigation confirmed that Delacote's Villa and adjoining properties were registered under nominee companies she controlled. Authorities suspect the involvement of a law firm in facilitating the formation of these companies, which will be further investigated." Yeah, we have discussed this in other videos. They have shut down and raided law firms here in Thailand over this kind of stuff.

The point of this video though, more to the point I should say, this is effectively unravelling the deceased's Will is what is really going on here. They're coming in and saying, look these structures were set up illegally; the property that was held within these structures was effectively acquired illegally, so we're looking at unravelling them, effectively dissolving them I would presume. Then the Legal Execution Department here in Thailand will come in, seize it and place it up for auction I imagine, if it all goes through the due process that it likely will go through in the forthcoming months. 

The point I'm trying to make here is, when doing estate planning, when making plans for the eventuality of one's passing, this is one of the things that needs to be taken into account because again these nominee structures could be dissolved in the event of someone passing away. And I expect that this will become more acute as we see people who possess property here in Thailand pass away and then these structures are placed under the scrutiny of the Thai Probate Courts - what we would call in the Common Law vernacular Thai Probate Courts - Thai Law calls that, or the Civil Law sort of vernacular calls that “Succession”, but whatever, I mean it's tomato - tomato, but what we would call the Probate Court they're going to scrutinize this stuff. So as more and more people pass away who have these sort of illegal structures set up, it stands to reason that more and more of them are going to be subject to scrutiny, possible dissolution and then you don't actually end up passing along what you intended to pass along.

The point I'm trying to make is effective estate planning probably could forestall or mitigate a lot of that and that's one of the reasons why it might not be a terrible idea if folks do have an estate here in Thailand especially involving property, and corporate interest, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.