A very close friend of mine needs guidance (and concrete facts) in divorcing a Thai man.

Basically the marriage broke down years ago and recently my friend decided to move out. She's extremely non-confrontational and doesn't want to go through with getting a divorce, however friends and family are concerned as there's a family business and a mistress & son involved.

As I understand there is no such thing as a separation order in Thailand. The man can't handle money and our main concern is, is that if she doesn't divorce him any debt he gets himself into would mean that she's also liable.

Please advise if this is the case and what are the procedures of a divorce in thailand? What happens to assets and money that were acquired during the marriage?

Sorry if a topic like this has already been started...

Thank you in advance for any help and guidance provided.

A visit to the amphur with the original wedding certificates & some id, agreement on division of assets, child support & custody of child & it can be done in a day. The main issue is if they are both in agreement.

Once divorced she is not liable for any debt he may in future become under.

Here is a link to an article about divorce in Thailand: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/redirect.php...-under-thai-law

Note that if her stay is based on her Thai husband, her permission to stay ends the day when she divorces. She might get a permission to stay based on the children, but would need to show 40,000 a month or 400,000 in the bank for that one.

I'm afraid I have become a bit of an expert in this one! Boo is correct on the actual mechanism, but the key discussion is getting agreement on division of assetts and liabilities and children.

Assetts and liabilities first. Both parties are entitled to retain any assetts (including cash at the bank) they came into the marriage with. If you are lucky you are likely to find that the local PooYai or one of his team have a witnessed document identifying what these are for each party. If not, you are into shouting match territory. If the business is set up as a company (unlikely) then it would stand outside this process and only the shareholdings in it would count within the process. If the business is not a company (normal) and predates the marriage, you would have to find a way of assessing the worth of the business at the time of the marriage and now. If it is something like a shop and you haven't moved premises or expanded etc then there should be no effective change.

Then you are on to assessing how the assetts have increased during the marriage. This increase is split 50/50. The definition of assetts is just as in the west and includes things like cash in bank, and ignores what name the assett is held in. When looking at land it is important to differentiate between the different classes of ownership. Land owned outright is valuable. Land where all you have is an agricultural lease with someone else owning the freehold is not. You may not be able to tell from looking at who controls the land on a day to day bassis! Find someone who can read the documents!

Finally kids. In Thailand a girl is an assett and a boy is a liability. This is because all children are expected to support their parents in old age. But the girl brings her husband to live with her family, whereas the boy will need a dowry to get rid of him. Therefore a girl is a talisman of expected support in old age whereas a boy is likely to cost to get rid of. There does not appear to be any convention as to which partner a child goes with, but clearly there is gong to be compertition to keep a girl and vice versa with a boy. As far as I can tell future maintenance is not normal - the arrangement is a clean break. Your freind should therefore meet little resistance if she wants the boy to go with her. In our case we were happy to let the girl go with her mother and this eased the level of dispute over the assets. In theory you could use the perceived future costs and benefits of children to influence the allocation of assets.

At no point is there any practical weight to any discussion on how the marriage broke down. But be prepared for mother in law to make a huge performance out of it! Luckily she will be wasting her breath.

Avoid at all costs using the law. Going to a judge to resolve this will be hugely expensive and should more than wipe out any joint assetts. You would need to be very wealthy indeed to make it worth while.

Now a shot in the dark. Assuming the overall wealth hasn't changed dramatically during the marriage, my advice would be to try to exit retainig control of her individual bank accounts, with a small car and the son. And leave them to retain everything else. This ought to be seen as fair by the surrounding larger family - albeit they will have alll wanted to see if they can get away with stripping the falang! Only down side is that having moved out of the family home has removed the main bargaining counter. What motive does he have to settle? Don't forget that Thailand is not known for coming to a quick decision. I'd expect between 6 and 12 months!

Hope that all helps and doesn't depress too much!

Chris

Thank you very much for everyones responses, they've been most useful.

My friend's three children are all grown up, 20+ so no custody over them is needed.

The husband has a mistress and they have a son together, he's only 5, sorry for the confusion.

My friend doesn't want to go through the hassle of a divorce since she's walked away from the matrimonial home (having the mistress and son living under the same roof is slightly difficult).

The main thing we want to know is that whether or not my friend will be liable for any debt that the husband may get himself in to. Would staying married have any detrimental consequences?

To bring this back on track, as long as they remain legally married she will technically be liable for any debt he may get into. Whether it would stick at the end of the day given the circumstances is another matter. But it may be expensive and time consuming to go through the courts to try to argue otherwise and ultimately the arguments may not work. The best thing for her is to get a divorce.

Posts deleted, please do not feed the troll, simply hit the report button and let me take care of it.

i have a friend in a similiar situation. she is from germany and wondering how the household chores are divided?