Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing banking in the context of Wills. For this video, what we are talking about specifically here is one, if you do have a bank account in Thailand and you keep any kind of substantial money in it, for example retirees out there or even those who hold an O Marriage Visa, if you are maintaining your Visa status via a lump sum amount in a given Thai Bank Account - say 800,000 or 400,000, Retirement Visa versus Marriage Visa respectively - you are probably going to be better off than not, having a Will in Thailand so that in the event of your passing, someone can get that Bank Account; call it a next of kin, call it whatever but somebody that you stipulate as a beneficiary in your testamentary instrument aka your Will, can get those monies. 

The reason I bring this up is one, some years back, we actually did the video on it, there became sort of a forfeiture procedure if you will for funds that just got left in a bank, and after a certain period of time, effectively the bank - it is sort of what we call in the American Common Law vernacular - it escheats to the state, it basically escheats, and it can be seized essentially. So if it stays in a bank after one's demise for too long, eventually it's just going to disappear effectively and if you wanted it to go to somebody it is not going to go there. So that's something definitely to think about in a banking context. 

The other thing is and unfortunately this is something I haven't seen, it is not incredibly uncommon, is somebody that another person may not have wanted to access their funds may have access via for example an ATM card to their Bank Account and may be siphoning funds in an undue manner; it does happen unfortunately. Again a Will is the best thing one can have to really try to forestall that. It may not be able to completely mitigate it or forestall it completely, but it might put that person in a situation where once you have the Will, what we will call the American Common Law context “probated”, you get an order from the Court regarding the Bank Account, you can halt those undo transactions. 

So banking actually does interact a lot with Wills in Thailand. It's something to think about and all of these things are things to think about when you are drafting a Will for usage here in the Kingdom of Thailand.