Careful advice on wills, trusts, and cross-border succession

A will may benefit from review when your family circumstances have changed — a marriage, a divorce, the birth of a child or grandchild, or the death of someone named in the document. Changes in the assets you hold, or in where those assets are located, can also be relevant. Our Will Update Review is designed for exactly this kind of calm check.

Not necessarily. A trust involves ongoing administrative obligations and is suited to particular circumstances — for example, where there are assets that a family would prefer to hold collectively over time, or where the beneficiaries include younger or more vulnerable family members. Our Family Trust Documentation service begins with a written summary of whether and how a trust would work in your specific situation, before any drafting is undertaken.

Thai law generally applies to assets located in Thailand, regardless of the nationality of the deceased. The Civil and Commercial Code sets out the statutory order of heirs and the rules governing succession. Where the deceased also held assets or had family connections abroad, the interaction between Thai law and the relevant foreign law needs careful consideration. Our Cross-Border Inheritance Coordination service addresses this kind of situation in full.

This varies by service and by the complexity of your situation. A Will Update Review is often completed within a few weeks. Family Trust Documentation involves more stages — written summary, then drafting if you proceed — and the timeline is set partly by the pace at which you are ready to move. Cross-Border Coordination depends on the number of jurisdictions involved and the responsiveness of authorities abroad. We will describe a realistic timeframe at the outset of each engagement.

Yes. All of our work is conducted in English, and written documents are produced in English as the primary language. Where Thai-language versions are required for official purposes, we can arrange this as part of the engagement.

For a Will Update Review, a copy of your existing will is helpful, along with a brief note of what has changed since it was drafted. For a Family Trust or Cross-Border matter, a short written overview of your family situation and the assets involved helps us prepare a more considered initial discussion. There is no need to have everything in order before you contact us — a general outline is a perfectly good starting point.