SantiSuk

Global House used to have it in 20kg carboys in the two branches within driving distance of me (Ubon Ratchathani and Kantharalak) at about 280 baht, but they both seem not to have restocked in recent months. Haven't yet asked if that is intentional or just a short term supply issue.

Prior to Global House, when the largest of the watsadus (DIY sheds) in Ubon had stopped stocking it 8 years ago I could not find carboys elsewhere in the other national chain watsadus or builders merchants locally 'for love nor money'* - despite those pool guys in Bangkok and Pattaya on pool threads annoyingly saying it's available at all builders merchants! My guess is that many retailers find handling such a dangerous chemical a pain in the proverbial!

I found myself back then 6-8 years ago having to collect it in bulk (ie 5 or more carboys at a time) from a builders merchant in Roi Et (a friend living there had alerted me to it) or Buriram (well-known watsadu just north of the ring road). Then Global opened locally. Now I'm back to square one and will have to troll round the local watsadus again when I get nearer to running out.

*Some had smaller bottles but not at a very economic price. I'm recalling3 litres for 100baht kind of price)

My 4.5m x 15m pool, exposed to full sun and containing 90,000 litres (including reserve/overflow tank) loses about 7cm of water in the reserve tank each day during hot season (say March to August). This equates to 0.5% (one 200th) of the pool+reserve volume. During cooler climes this drops to about 4cm. Pumping is on 6.5 to 7 hours a day.

Typical centralist media coverage - assuming that the whole of Thailand is closed down for bars and restricted for restaurants. We are increasingly seeing Bangkok residents "taking cover" in the nether (largely Covid-free) regions of Isaan.

On 7/8/2020 at 3:45 PM, khastan said:

My number one recommendation for any type of legal issue is Isaan Lawers. If it was not for Sebastian's very wise advice and help many years ago I would have been thrown out of the house I live in now.  Since 2007 he has helped me with numerous issues and can always help no matter what. I cannot recommend both him and his company enough.

This post comments from my experience on a number of angles covered by various posters in this thread.

I haven't heard a bad word said about Isaan Lawyers (on ThaiVisa or Google reviews). Quite the contrary. Go to their website to get a good view of their range of services (quite broad) and capabilities. They will advise on property transactions.

I enquired about drafting a Thai will 2 years ago when I had heart problems and I received a package to complete from Isaan Lawyers which would have cost me 5,000 baht (hope my memory serves me right) for them to prepare and discuss the will with me based on the returned package of info. Never got round to completing the package as my heart bypass operation came up rather quickly. Must do so now!

Am about to hire Isaan Lawyers to help the UK executor of a deceased friend ensure that the assets in Thailand are collected. Sebastian Brousseau was  impresssive in a 45 minute telephone consultation to sell his firm's capabilities and outline the processes involved.  In this case we may have to use the Scottish will and take it through the local Thai probate Court as there is no Thai will. I soon found out that local Thai lawyers had no experience of using a foreign will at Thai probate courts by interviewing a couple of them and the clerk to the local probate court ("we don't get a lot of foreign wills here - get a lawyer from Bangkok' was the clerk's recommendation) - I am confident that would cost twice as much as Isaan Lawyers, since the big law firms are close to western nation rates IME).

If you have assets in Thailand that are non-trivial it is clear to me that you need a Thai will. Using your home country will is more involved and more costly to your estate. Equally important if you value your Thai partner and wish her/him to have an easy ride in the distress period after a death then please tell them before you peg it what to expect, where to find all necessary documents and correspondence, where is the will(s) and who can help with pursuing the collection of assets and distribution of the estate. Leave written instructions. Make sure someone can access your computer and phone (unless of course you fear what might be found!)

You can avoid a Thai Court process if you only have bank balance(s) and they are trivial (less than say 20,000 baht and/or you have a good relationship with the Thai bank manager). Larger balances will require a Court Order to instruct the bank to accept the withdrawal and to give notice of transfer of title of eg vehicles, property, securities  to the relevant government/financial authorities.

Those above who claim that it is outside the law for a bank manager to allow bank balances to be claimed are wrong (I believe, or at the very least are way over-egging the risk). Amphur staff, Thai lawyers and even the clerk to a Court will tell you to try it out for smaller amounts as it is custom and practice for bank managers to do so on production of valid wills and death certificates.

2 hours ago, NancyL said:

 

You're right, this isn't a rare occurrence. A foreign Will is valid in Thailand, but you're going to have to hire a Thai lawyer to have the Will probated and declared valid in a Thai court.  Maybe sympathetic bank managers would have accepted the UK Final Will without probate if they knew the couple well and the account was of low value, but there is no way to sell the car and motorcycle without a Thai judge declaring it valid.  

 

I've been involved in multiple cases.

 

Many thanks. Good to have confirmation of a view I was reaching based on recent review of (marketing materials, masquerading as?) guidance/information notes by Thai and UK lawyers.

So the title of this thread is "What happens to a foreigner's assets in Thailand upon death"?

Lots of advice to get a Thai will written, but no advice about what happens when the foreigner has died already with assets in Thailand and no Thai will.

How are assets treated then? In the case of my deceased expat (UK) friend a Thai bank account plus car and motorcycle. There is a UK will with a UK executor. What can he do to recover the assets to distribute to beneficiaries (including the Thai widow who he will take care of appropriately if he can)? Do the Thai rules on intestacy and the procedures for processing an intestate will in Thailand have any part to play here - whatever those procedures are? [I can read the intestacy rules but can't find English language guidance on the process of collection and distribution.]

Any experience to offer? Surely it can't be a rare occurence? Any help that might avoid the default answer "go and hire a Thai lawyer" would be welcome - unless some have tried all avenues and come to that conclusion. Thai lawyers would probably absorb at least one-third of the assets' value.

No tips on dodgy ways of grabbing the assets by the Thai widow please - we (the deceased's executor and I as the friendly local expat adviser to the widow) want to do this properly.

Try googling "can i buy a uk annuity for a "foreign" spouse" (quotes around foreign will ensure you get some foreign element). I tried it and found the first two pages might have given me some lateral ideas but nothing was hitting the subject right on the mark. I didn't have time to go through more than two pages though.

As a last resort you would have to consult a UK financial planning adviser or talk to a couple of annuity providers direct. For the latter I would choose Aviva, Axa and or whatever Norwich Union is now called.

OK, so this subject was covered in a thread of the same title 5 years ago:-

The general consensus was that you do not need to apply for an International Driving Permit (because the Thai driving license key details are all provided in English), with the proviso that you must show a 5 year Thai license (ie a one year Thai license does not suffice).

I'm tempted to get an IDP for backup just in case, so I have the following questions:

* Does anyone have recent (last 2 years) experience of using a 5 year Thai license, without an International Driving Permit, to rent a car successfully in the UK (name of rental company please)?

* Has anyone been refused recently or told on enquiry by a specific hire company (name of rental company please) that they require an IDP?

* member stevenL (a member 5 years ago - I'll check whether I can still 'pm' him) made a comment that if your UK license has been revoked that it is not strictly legal to drive in the UK with another country's license. I am assuming that 'revoke' in this context does not include expiry at due date. Does anyone have any comment on stevenL's assertion and/or my assumption? My circumstances are noted below (#).

* How much does an IDP cost, where do I get one (eg any local transport/licensing/road tax office or just the one in one's own provincial capital) and how much hassle is it in timing and documentary requirements?

#  My circumstances are that I am approaching 70 and my 25 year UK license expires then. I have a current 5 year Thai driving license, which will probably need renewing before Covid allows me to visit the UK. UK governmental & financial institutions know I am no longer resident in the UK. Residence in the UK is a condition of applying for a new UK license and I would not be able to satisfy proof of a UK address any longer in any event.

Just found that Bloomberg has disappeared (without notice as far as I know). Final straw. They're toast. I'm cancelling down to the basic package that my wife and daughters watch.

The worst of corporate Thailand. A truly rubbish outfit.

I have just noticed this thread. Just to say that I have the condition bronchiectasis and have been here in Thailand, and expect to be here, for quite a long time.

If anyone needs advice on the condition, resources here in  Thailand to deal with it etc don't hesitate to post here and (or alternatively) PM me. Happy to share my experiences. Yes it is incurable like many diseases but, for most sufferers, you can still live a long and fruitful life if you know how to manage the condition and are prepared to put the effort in to research and use the sources of support available online to compensate for the limited expertise in the specific condition of 99% of Thailand's lung specialists.

Seems like 3-August was the mass letter dated date for this years Life Certificates (on the basis of my experience and the fact that I've seen a few people quote that date. Nobody I've seen has posted about a different date. Those who have previously mentioned a date of receipt in Thailand that I have seen have quoted a date in late August (same as my timing of receipt). Seems like your date of receipt is a gross outlier - you might want to phone International Pensions and inform them - either as a public service or because you need extra time to get your cert sent in.

A standard 109 baht (or thereabouts) international postage through Thai Post should get you a track & traced receipt within a couple of weeks of sending - based on my experience in recent months, now that mail to the UK is back to normal -ish.

Around where I live (rubber and fruit are primary crops) I reckon that 10% of the rubber trees on my daily walk routes has been cut out in the last two years and replaced mostly with durian plantations. The price of rubber will go up and durian will go down! 

Pity there's none of his copy presented here to give us Johnny-come-latelies a smell of the good ole days!

On 10/8/2020 at 4:43 PM, hotchilli said:

Never been to Korat... 

Well worth a weekend, but get some recommendations from the locals first otherwise, in common with other Issan towns, you would come away thinking (wrongly) that nothing's going on after dusk.

On 9/16/2020 at 4:44 PM, CapeTown said:

A lot of thought and consultation has evidently gone into the STV. This seems the best Thailand can manage for the moment.

 

The difficulties come from the bigger players who are losing considerable revenues and national companies must be facing bankruptcy.

 

Tourism is the main source of income for many millions of less well off Thais too. They are living on loans or earnings from the last high season 2019/20. They have no buffer beyond this year. What are they to do? Who is looking after them? Many have already returned to the village, to the homes of their parents and grandparents and to agriculture.

 

This is not just short term distress, the resentment and bitterness felt at home and abroad will have permanent long term consequences too, I would imagine.

 

But what else can the government do? The resources for plugging the gaps in the economy are not there. Neither is the health infrastructure for treatment. It cannot permit covid to rip through. It must wait for a vaccine.

 

For the moment, on balance, maybe best to stay closed, given the levels of fear in the people (Phuket is an example) and wait for the vaccine. Wait for the vaccine and think about the needs of all 70 million Thais and just as important, the needs of all future long and short stay visitors. It is a real challenge to keep hope alive and keep the welcoming smile.

 

For now, in practical terms, the most important job is presumably to focus on setting up the network of clinics that will be required for delivery of the much-hoped-for vaccine. This is very important.

 

 

There's already a network of health clinics (typically one each tanmbon) that provides free low-level health and a certain amount of local monitoring. Ask your Thai partner or a Thai friend to take you to one - you might be surprised at how organised the Thais are!

On 9/18/2020 at 7:57 PM, Elkski said:

Why didn't the article say much of the 1st rice plantings in SiSaKet died.  At least that's what fiance said.  

How can you have 16 reservoirs but only 2 dams? Dam it all. 

To address your second question, I think it's because most of Sisaket province is pretty flat with a very shallow incline in the water basin tilting down towards the Mun. You need valleys to build dams.

I reckon they are only talking about dams of significance though and those two mentioned are probably the ones in the river Mun itself. Most of the reservoirs I know around the southern amphurs of Sisaket have at least some kind of earthern damming at their outflow end.

The hills on the Cambodian border possibly offer the only real topography that would permit building of deep dammed reservoirs. It's only in the last few years that potential drought conditions have emerged on a consistent basis in Sisaket and one wonders where the resources are going to come from in these days of pandemic/recession to tackle the impact of climate change

Looks like it dumped a lot of rain over most of Isaan, but the quantity and severity of storm-like conditions has been variable.

In the southern amphurs of Sisaket the rain stats for Friday showed less than half the amount of rainfall compared with the central and northern amphurs (eg Kantharalak and Khun Han 70-80mm, meuang Sisaket/Phayu/Kanthararom 170-210mm). Soggy fields but no flooding to speak of around where I live.

Hopefully enough by the time the system has passed to see the farmers through the next dry season and the village water supplies delivering though. Without it I reckon we would have been struggling by March/April.

Accuweather satellite seems to suggest more fuel is being added to the system  off the Vietnam coast this morning

Re my post 85 above. Today I further investigated the issue re calling the DWP International Pension phone helpline out-of-hours vs within hours.

The hours of the phone helpline currently are restricted to 9:30am to 15:30pm, due to Covid impacts on staffing. If you call out-of-hours you will get a phone auto-response that says you should call back within hours, but only in respect of new pensions and changes in personal circumstances; for all other DWP International Pensions questions you should "call back at a later (unspecified) date" or consult Gov.UK. If however you call the same number within hours you will get that same auto-response, but immediately after that you will be given a list of other DWP phone helplines that will now respond to your phone call. Category 1 (ie press 1) gets you to the 'Life Certificates' helpline.
 

Laura on the Life Certificates phone helpline quickly confirmed that I could continue to send in a Certificate signed by a 'recognised professional', but not necessarily stamped by her/him. She suggested the professional should strike through the line that implies she/he is certifying that she/he has stamped the form and append a note in the vicinity indicating 'I do not have an official stamp'. OK elfPattaya has already kindly made it clear that such a relief from apparent requirements still applies, so that bit was only belt-and-braces. Laura also confirmed that a retired professional, who otherwise meets the recognised professional list requirements, can also witness a Life Certificate. That's good - I can witness certificates for friends and acquaintances (up to you if you wanna buy me a drink!).

With these reliefs I find it difficult to believe that expats, other than maybe recluses, cannot find someone to sign their certificate for free.

I told Laura that the out-of-hours auto-response will create havoc for them later. I can envisage those who fail to send in their certificates and who therefore have their pension suspended (maybe thru' no fault of their own) will be going ape-$**t if they happen to call the phone helpline out of its very restricted hours to be instructed to call back at an unspecified future date. She took the point and gave me a route to alert the relevant department online. Maybe they will correct the anomaly.

PS. I found out that my local falang bar owner (ex-UK-public house licensee) has used his wife as signatory to the bar's alcohol license (he thought it had to be a Thai, but that may not be so). Never mind - as a retired UK licensee he can still sign for me!

PSS. The full list of recognised professionals who can witness Life Certificates is here:

https://www.gov.uk/countersigning-passport-applications/accepted-occupations-for-countersignatories

[elsewhere it is made clear that this Passport Office-inspired list is also used by DWP for Life Certificates]

V. helpful mate. I'll try another out-of-hours call on Monday and an in-hours call on Tuesday and report back here.

Given that you had oral confirmation as recent as last Thursday that one can still submit a certificate, signed by someone who meets the professional requirements but not supported by her/his professional stamp (cos they aint got one), then that meets my original need for posting on here.

Given that I'm an ex chartered accountant I can't help being anal and wanting to tie up all the loose ends???? Given that I'm an ex FA-qualified football ref (local league stuff) I won't be able to resist reporting their error to them if there is a conflict between what the out-of-hours auto message says and what the in-hours response delivers ???? Yes - given I'm retired, I have time on my hands (not too much though).

Final thought. I checked with the landlord of my local falang bar last night (an ex-English publican). I asked him if there was a similar requirement to English licensing for Thai bars and similar. He said yes and pointed to his license displayed on the wall. 'Licencees of a public house' is a recognised profession for witnessing purposes. I'm going there now to watch Iceland v England on replay and to get the job done!

2 hours ago, elfpattaya said:

I called the number on the 1st page of the form. After all the gumpf re- covid, the first option 1 was life certificate.

My call lasted 4mins 19secs. Lady I spoke to was very helpful.

Do you have a record which number you called elf? I called +44 191 21 87777 Friday evening (4-Sep) about 5pm London time. That's the number given in the header to my 3-Aug-20 certification request letter. The full auto message was as I set out in post #74 on page 5 of this thread.

If you know you called a different number then knowing what that was will be very helpful. If you know you called the same number and it was before Friday 4-Sep then there is a possibility they have changed their answering policy within the last few days (perhaps to head off an expected surge in calls with this new round of letters going out to all and sundry). Once I've seen your response, or in any event if you don't reply, I'll try again phoning within hours and see where that gets me. Maybe there's an entirely different auto answer during the call centre hours that curiously conflicts with the out-of-hours message and does still permit us to talk about Life Certs.

37 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

 

 

I can confirm that the stamp is no longer required. I can't give you the reference point for that but the requirement was cancelled a couple of years ago I think.

 

I sign about a dozen a year and no \longer affix my stamp.

That's very helpful. Must have been at least 4 years ago that the requirement was not enforced. My August 2016 Life Certificate went in with a teacher signing and no stamp.

We cannot confirm with DWP that the stamping requirement still no longer applies as of today. My phone call yesterday evening with that intention and with the auto response "call back at some (..unspecified..) future date" was to the call centre phone number that appears on the 3-August-20 letter. This unhelpful response must be a very new one, since member elfpattaya, a few posts above, did get a real person response from (apparently) the same call centre phone number very recently (my presumption is that he is a recipient of the 3-Aug-20 letter too) that was breathtakingly submissive in nature - effectively "yes, you Mr/Mrs UK pensioner can go through your certificate with me over the phone now and I will give you oral clearance and agree to give you my name in case you are challenged".

So where does that leave us. My strategy will be to see if my Thai dentists (one an acquaintance and westernised) will stamp my certificate to remove all doubt by the end of next week. Failing that I'll send in my cert unstamped by airmail (note 1) at the start of the following week and check it has arrived 3-4 weeks hence (giving me time to make a second run at it on a stamped basis using EMS (note 2).
 

Note 1: I sent a plain one sheet of A4 by airmail to HMRC in the UK last week. My local postmaster confirmed that this is now up and running and speculated one to two weeks delivery (he predicted "could be up 2 months, only surface mail" back in the teeth of Covid. Cost 109 baht

Note 2: EMS has track & trace and is expensive and is also confirmed as now available ("probably a week speculated my postmaster"). I seem to recall some issues with t & t stopping at Swampy occasionally a year and more ago but I found thta my post office would ring ThaiPost HQ and get a read on the back half of its travel if that happened. Cost 880 baht

Availability now of airmail and EMS to UK is also indicated on ThaiPosts website btw.  

Izod/Transam. Point of clarification. Is your debate about the potential for a penalty for fraud relating to a claim to be living in the UK when in reality living in (say) Thailand, or is it relating to the potential for a penalty if you do not comply with the "still alive" certification requirement.

My only input is that I personally have had my pension suspended for not replying to the 2018 certification round in time* and I've seen postings by many others that suffered the same. 

Is suspending a pension not a sanction (at least in layman terms)? If so how can they sanction a benefit for delay in certification compliance but not sanction the same benefit for another reason (such as falsly claiming a UK address and obtaining additional benefit in that event)? Something doesn't seem logical to me.

Please don't be rude in response (I will not enter that kind of discussion). Let's keep it civilised eh guys? ????

*Actually they had received it one day before deadline and DWP admitted it on challenge