Superficies lease in the event of a deceased lessee without a will

[lordblackader]

Wondering if anyone has some advice on this situation involving a friend -comments such as "ask a lawyer" are not helpful, ultimately a lawyer will be consulted but I was hoping someone may have experience with a similar situation as they've asked me for advice. 

 

Elderly man close to sadly passing. He has a 30 year superficies lease with Thai person A, who legally owns the land, while another family member (person  has worked for him for years as a live in housekeeper. 

 

He lacks a will covering the property itself - the stated verbal intent is that the house passes to person A with both A & B living in the house and it was presumed, until now, that would naturally just happen as person A is the legal land owner. 

 

However, from my reading of Thai law a superficies lease has the right to be inherited and the lease is not necessarily terminated at the point of death. There are no wives or children at all or other relatives, so in theory zero chance that others will attempt to make a claim against the rights to the superficies lease.
.
In Australia, where I'm from originally, an estate without a will would go to the State Trustees to be sorted out - is there a similar process in Thailand?

 

In the event that there is not, and there is no claims on the estate, is it difficult to have the superficies reference removed off the land title - presuming of course that at a minimum a certificate of death would be required along with some other types of paperwork.

 

Thanks.

 

[Suradit69]

On 5/6/2018 at 2:39 PM, lordblackader said:

In Australia, where I'm from originally, an estate without a will would go to the State Trustees to be sorted out - is there a similar process in Thailand?

In Thailand if someone dies intestate and the list of statutory heirs produces no one, then:

 

Quote

Under the Thai laws, when upon the death of a person, he left no statutory heir; the estate of the deceased person shall pass to the State, subject to the rights of the decedent’s creditors.

https://www.thailandlaw.org/intestate-succession-in-thailand.html

 

Keep in mind the process would be ultra slow moving, although production of a death certificate might speed things up compared to cases where someone dies and no one bothers to take that step.

 

I assume that "subject to the rights of the decedent's creditors" would make the land owner significant in the equation.

 

I doubt "verbal intent" alone would carry much weight. 

 

I realize this doesn't give any certain outcome. It does seem that a representative of "the State" would be left to decide if there was anything of value to "the state" worth pursuing. Doubt that decision would be made quickly.

[Antonymous]

OP, you will need to read the superficies contract itself. There are two options for any superrficies:

 

1. it expires on death

2. it expires after 30 years

 

If in this case it expires on death of the superficies holder  then the property would revert to the land owner automatically.

 

If it expires after 30 years I do not know the legal outcome. I would suspect that if the holder of the superficies has not willed it to anyone, the property on the land might revert to the landowner...but I'm only guessing.

[Antonymous]

The owner of the land should have a copy of the superficies. If you can't locate it, by law the Land Office must keep an original too.

[natway09]

I  am pretty sure that if was a 30 year lease could be "maintained by 2nd party.

Obviously they would take on the responsibilities as well.

If the owner really wanted vacant possession back you may find hard to maintain possession

[greenchair]

I find it hard to believe that this man had not a single living relative. 

He must have an uncle, cousin, sister or brother somewhere. Even if he was an only child, it's hard to believe that his mother and father were both only children with no surviving relatives. Person A and person B have not done due diligence to find this man true heirs. A presentation of the death certificate at the Australian embassy would probably turn up several next of kin that don't even know  (conveniently) that he has died. 

What a wicked Web we weave, when first endeavour to deceive.