Suppose there's a family of parents and their children, all Thai nationals, and the parents own some land. One parent dies, and the land is owned by the surviving parent. Then when that parent dies intestate, my understanding is that the children will inherit the land. Does the land get divided somehow, and each child gets a portion? Or do all children jointly own the entire parcel? And do they need to actively do anything, or is it automatically handled by the courts, etc? In particular, what if one of the children lives abroad (but they're still registered in their parents' blue book) and can't be contacted by any government officials. Is it possible that the other siblings (who are in Thailand) can cut out the one who's abroad? ("Oh, they need to sign some document? We don't know where they are; I guess they can't sign it!")

Best will be to either contact a lawyer who specializes in these matters of the government department that handles inheritance and probates, either one will be able to answer you in full...

 

Technically in Thailand when someone dies intestate, his/her assets are split between children first (if any) with the surviving spouse entitled to 50%. There is a "pecking order..children, parents. brothers/sisters...................) When the surviving spouse dies, whats left is split between the children. How that is done is often by mutual agreement or decided by the court.  In practice, especially in rural villages, one child, generally the youngest, lays claim to the assets on the basis that they, and they alone, cared for the parent. Most are not aware of the laws of intestacy. Wills amongst the masses are something of a rarity

 

Sorry that this does not answer the OPS question.

 

7 hours ago, QuantumMech said:

...my understanding is that the children will inherit the land. Does the land get divided somehow, and each child gets a portion? Or do all children jointly own the entire parcel? And do they need to actively do anything, or is it automatically handled by the courts, etc?

Yes the children get the land, and would either split it – i.e. sub divide – if possible, or one child will buy the others out at market price. Decision would be agreed in the Court when the estate is handled.

 

Not all land can be subdivided in smaller individual lots with their own title deed, depending of rank of deed and servitudes.

 

It's the children's own decision how to handle it. The land might at first be transferred to a name of one of the children – which could be the oldest male child, or the oldest child – until sub-division, or whatever would be agreed, is in place.

 

If it's farmland that cannot be subdivided, one of the children might farm it a pay a fee per rai, or a share of the harvest, to the other children; or if there are more than one farmer among the children, they'll share the farming land. They might made an agreement with head-of-village (Poo Yai Ban) as witness, like most village agreement and lands transfers of low-level title deed are made with head-of-village as signed witness.

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