Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing competency, timing and Thai Wills. What do we mean here? Well, competency is a major issue when you are dealing with a Thai Will. What are we talking about?

Somebody needs to be of sound mind in order to execute a testamentary instrument, i.e. a Will which will later be executed by a Court; now I am using Common Law vernacular. To be clear, I am not a Thai Attorney, we have Thai Attorneys here in the office. I am an American Attorney but I look at this from a Comparative Law angle and I make this information for informational purposes. But yes, notwithstanding the fact I may come at this from a Common Law vernacular, many of the principles and concepts are similar and the issue of having competence to write a Will is a concern in the Thai system as much as it would be in the American system. 

So first of all you have got to understand, if you are drafting an instrument for example for yourself to be used in the event of your passing, you want to be sure there are no questions that you are of sound mind at the time you drafted the document. This comes up a little bit when I deal with guys that are older who will say, "yeah I am only about 71; everything's going along okay" - I was talking to a guy the other day who literally said that - "I will come back to you on doing a Will later". I said "look I am not trying to push you into anything but sooner is oftentimes better", because as you get older whether this is warranted or not, the issue of whether one is competent of sound mind becomes an increasing concern. 

So again the timing of drafting a Will, again I don't mean to say 'sooner rather than later' necessarily, but you want to keep a good eye on the fact that you want to make sure that you get a Will solidly drafted within the time frame where no one can really question whether or not you are of sound mind at the time the instrument is executed.