DIY wills and POA

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After inquiring about obtaining a POA for me to represent my 89yr old father at the US consulate for sworn affidavit of pension for my 89 yr old father who is under my care and at this point, he is barely able to walk, they sent me a list of local Chiang Mai attorneys and i contacted one that I was familiar with and their fee for that simple doccument was 2kbaht. I then asked for their fee for drawing up a simple will naming me as my father's beneficiary of his two Thai bank accounts [currently amounting to 500kbaht].....one page of 'boiler plate' [standard fill in the empty spaces doccument] and they wanted 8kbaht.

Leading me to ask the following questions....

1] what are the standard attorney fees for these simple doccuments?? POA & will

2] can I DIY [do it myself by typing up the forms and getting three witnesses to sign?? Legally??

3] it was [just casually] mentioned that the POA would be useful for one transaction only and would have to be drawn up on a yearly basis to satisfy

Thai immigration requirements for retirement visa. Is this true??

4] and would Eglish only suffice for these doccuments??

any competent or experienced advise would be greatly appreciated as I feel that attorneys here in LOS are 'sharks' like their counterparts in America.

Thanks in advance.....

It's a hassle isn't it? At my fathers request, once he turned 80, we chnaged his bank accounts to joint accounts with my sister and me as joint owners. I think that's the simplest solution.

Lanna's solution is a good one.

Question: Are you in Thailand and your father "back home" or are you both in LOS? If you father is in USA and you will be primarily be dealing with financial institutions back there there are websites and good books that have all the forms you would need and can easily prepare these documents yourself. The main problem most people run into is to get a bank or brokerage to accept forms you or a lawyer have prepared yourself. They often have their own POA forms that they will want both of you to sign. So check with your father's banks/brokerages to see if they have their own preferred forms (info is usually somewhere on their websites and usually you can download the forms too).

You might also want to consider a POA for health care so that if it's necessary, you can make health care or life prolonging decisions (or not to prolong life) if or when your father becomes mentally incapacitated.

After you have done the basic research, PM to me if you want more detailed information and book recommendations.

PS: I am in a similar position to you (manage all my aging parents financial affairs) and have wills, living trust, medical POA, and general POA already made up.

Both my father and I are here in LOS and unfortunately a joint account is out, because of thai immigration requirements for retirement visa.

He does have all the legalities of his US estate taken care of and managed by my brother there and is only legal there. Here, we come under Thai law and it's many inconsistencies.

Hi.as regards to making a will to make it posible for you to recover the 500k if something should happen to your dad,maybe it would be far simpler if you just had access to an atm card for both the accounts and just drew out the cash and left the accounts empty.??.

The problem is that the account with 500kTHB in it is an term deposit and has no ATM attached to it.

I do hold and use his other account with 'opperating expenses'....small baht.