A very important subject to post on, well done richard =D>

Does anyone know of a service similar to the American one mentioned please American Citizen Services

If not is there somewhere that U.K. dependants can turn to when we die.

My wife is totally confused when I try to explain things to her and then there is the problem if completing relevant forms to claim any entitlements, including U.K. governmental ones.

While her English is reasonable she gets completely confused when asked to even read information.

Has anyone had any recent experiences on this relating to someone who has passed on, maybe assisted their loved ones in some way.

Thank you in advance.

marshbags

Each of my financial accounts in the U.S. has a designated beneficiary; it is easily done by contacting the financial institutions: banks, mutual funds, etc. When my death is established, these institutions will give control of the accounts to the beneficiary. In the absence of a Will, my U.S. based assets would be inherited by my only child; nevertheless to be explicit about the inheritance, I will also prepare a Will to that effect.
For the U.S accounts, I am assuming that my death will be established by producing a letter from the American Consular Service. I am also assuming that a death certificate from a reputable hospital would be required by the Consular Service to issue such a letter. Therefore, if I die outside of a hospital I have instructed that my body be taken to one to obtain such a certificate before my body is cremated.
I have a Will made by a Thai law firm covering my Thai assets: bank accounts and a pick-up. After my death, my lady will contact a lawyer for help in getting control of these assets.
In summary, the beneficiary of my U.S. accounts, my only child, would be able to take over my U.S. accounts on producing the letter from the American Consular Service, and my lady in Thailand would gain control over my Thai assets on producing the Will and the death certificate.
I am leaving with my lady two draft e-mails to be sent by her after my death, one to my daughter and one to another relative. I would also like to leave with her a few contacts, local American residents, who she can approach for advice in dealing with the consular service.
I will also leave behind a box of documents, financial and personal, to be handed over to my daughter after my death.
Finally, I have also prepared a “Living Will’ that states that my life should not be extended by artificial means and/or medications if it would seem very unlikely that I would recover to resume normal life.
What did I miss?

My name lol .

Well done . Accountability in these issues is well defined. .

Living will and right to die issues in thailand is their clear law on this. Or should ur lawyer be a party to the decision process.

I have a folder in my gmail account for our daughter. She has half of my password, an older brother has another piece of the password. In that folder are probably 10 or so notes/emails detailing all our daughter needs to know to settle bank accounts, who to contact to help sell our home/land, important phone numbers, where important papers are, and where my 50 pounds of gold bricks are interred (joke), etc. Someone wrote recently the odd feeling when writing those type of emails (I'm alive now, but when you read this email, I won't be).

In my 'Living Will', the decision to 'pull the trigger' would rest with two individuals who would not directly benefit from my exit.

RC

Understand that but if ur living in Thailand does thai law allow this.

in a recent matter I have been involved with in regards tourist deaths in Thailand, some problems have now occurred with an insurance company not willing to pay out, as they did not consider the death of the victim invovled was an accident. The insurance policy only covered accidents..This has put an extra burden on the family...I would suggest that you check the fine print of any such documents you may hold in your favour.

Further complications can arise in that two different forms of procedure happen in Thailand upon a death...if you die in a Thai hospital, the hospital is in charge of the body, and paperwork, and they may undertake an autopsy, or may not.

However, if you die outside of hospital, then the police are in charge of the body, and the body is sent to one of thier preferred hospitals for an autopsy, if death is not obvious. In the case above, some of the victims bodies were sent to a teritary institution, to a Dept of Medicine at a local University for autopsies,.the University has a good name, and had worked on body indentifcation after the 2009 tsumani. Whether some of the current autopsies were carried out by medical students as part of thier doctorateship, is unclear, However, upon investigation it was discovered that that same University had also lost some 120 victim files over the last couple of years, making it impossible for parties to ascertain the cause of death, moreso now when said victims were cremated or buried after the autopsies.

in the case of those who died in hospital, some never had an autopsy, one body was released to the family almost immediately, death cetificate issued, and sent back to their homeland and buried..cause of death is still not known, but a death cert had been issued in the first instance. This was written in thailand as is the normal practise, and a further one was translated into English for overseas authorities..One note from the relevant Embassy was that they could not quarantee due to the language barrier in regards fancy medical terms, that the English Death Certificate aligned with the Thai version..

Thailand is not like alot of other countries like my own , where every death is invesitgated, and every one has an autopsy, so that legal matters can be squared away..It is now hoped that a better system will be put in place to investigate and provide better qaulity medical records for future westerner deaths in Thailand..

if members have concerns about what will happen upon thier death, the procedure involved, matters in regards death certificates, matters about wills, or even contact names for the wife to call, and further information, I would suggest a word to your relevant embassy now, so you have all the information available...generally things go smoothly, but not always, so abit of homework now may save family memebers at a later date.

Hi all! I am new to Udon Thani and this forum. I hope to have a quiet stay here with my Thai, lady for a long period of time after spending 5 years in Jomtien/Pattaya. I read all the posts made in this topic and it contains very good information. The one unanswered question for me is; if I die outside a hospital and the police want to have an autopsy performed, will they send my remains to Bangkok as they do if I were in Jomtien/Pattaya.

I recently filed a last will and testament and want to be cremated in a Buddhist Temple here in Udon as per my instructions in the will. My lady's concern is that if they send me to Bangkok, she may never get the body back, ( i know ha ha ha) or, she will have to pay for it to be transported back to Udon Thani because of a friend's experience. I want to go to the Udon Police Station to ask but I am not sure I want to rely on the accuracy of their response and my lady thinks this will only open suspicious thoughts about her ( i know, i know TIT )

Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Take care everyone

Generally speaking ur Embassy would also be involved in these situations, So have ur GF / partner etc have a signed copy of the will with her, when she meets them, showing ur wishes etc....

Sending the body to BKK for an autopsy might still be required depending on the possible cause of death, if its suspicious, then international medica concerns can put the pressure on the locals and they will happily pass the buck to K Porntip and her team at Chulla.

If you died from natural causes, then the local authorities might go with a death cert from Udon Hospital, Embassy still involved and your wishes granted locally and within a reasonable time.

Bottom line is , to have your will , written in Thai and English and available ASAP at your time of death.

I've known 17 expats from Udon die over the years.....most of older age, but a few not. To the best of my knowledge, none had an autopsy performed. All were either cremated (most) or buried in Udon/surrounding areas. As far as the American Embassy goes, someone from the Udon area (an Embassy Warden) usually calls the embassy when someone dies, but that's about the extent of any interaction with the embassy (at the time of death). Perhaps if the death were suspicious (and the embassy knew that it was suspicious), then they might do something else.....but, in 17 deaths, I'm not aware of them doing anything other than receiving a phone call notifying them of a death.
To receive a certificate of death from the embassy, the spouse has to obtain the death certificate from the hospital and take it to the American Embassy where they will issue a death certificate (that can be used in the event of a claim with an insurance company in the US...or for settling an estate in the US, bank accounts etc).
There might be something I'm missing in the process, but that's been my experience over the years.

The only thing you are missing is the next of kin bit . If you are legally married with a Thai wife there should be no problem, she, as next of kin can arrange every thing .However if you have only gone through the village Buddha ceremony with her, she has no legal connection to you.The embassy will want instructions in writing from a genuine kin relation. This can be to permit the Thai" wife" to arrange everything on their behalf. Believe me from experience, I know the British Embassy will not give you a release letter for the body until this is obtained, sometimes a week later, as it must be in writing.They will not even respect a clause in the deceased's will appointing the "wife".

Without going into much detail, a foreigner died of a heart attack. Some friends of his wanted an autoposy, the wife didn't it wasn't done. Not sure exactly how things work but that is what happened.

As to preparing information that is the prudent thing to do. Those of us in the VFW have been provided with a sort of check list to be given to the VFW service Officer.

I have envelope sit aside an have for years marked Service Officer. To include the e-mail addresses of friends and family with my password. Simple e-mail to all and it's done.

I have everything in my wife's name so no problems with that. But, on the other hand she earned it living with me.

Some guys have dies with service connected disabilities, this makes a huge difference in what the spouse will receive from the V.A. Problem the death certificate came out heart stopped. I good experienced VFW service officer will catch that in a second and get a proper cause of death listed.

I don't believe thinking about this in the future is not one bit morbid. Every living human being will deal with more then time one more then likely. When you think of loved ones and friends.

Pulling the plug that is one I had not thought about.

Lonetraveler's question about sending the body to Bangkok:
I'll go out on a limb here: If you're a famous singer/actor/HI-SO somebody who dies suspiciously, then I suppose there'd be a chance of the powers in Bangkok wanting to get in on the act and do an autopsy on your body, with all the cameras rolling, of course. I'll guess you don't fit that mold.
In all likelihood, you'll die in Udon, no one in Bangkok will care, and your body will be ashes before anyone notices there's arsenic in your blood. In the event of a suspicious death, I suppose IF (big IF) the embassy were contacted immediately upon death that your death were suspicious, they might be able to stop the hospital from preparing your body for the typical wake-in-the-living room.
If you followed the story of numerous suspicious falang deaths in the Chiangmai hotel last year, you'll see that Thais don't have the same investigative procedures as most developed countries. Several deaths were attributed to old-age and bad market food......when in the end, it was probably over exposure to insecticide that was used in the rooms. t.i.t. baby, it's what makes living in Thailand so exciting!

Thank you all for the quick response to my question. I was under the impression that all deaths of foreigners outside a hospital required an autopsy which is only performed at a police designated hospital in Bangkok. From the response here I guess that is not true and hopefully because I am old (mid 60's) hopefully many years from now when I drop dead, they can assume it is from natural causes.

I will take the advice given here and have my lady (last will in hand) contact the Embassy. My Will is in both Thai and English witnessed by 2 Thai people and filed with the Amphur Office here in Undon, hopefully that will allow her to have me Cremated in a timely fashion without too much hassle. My only next-of-kin are siblings and I have no assets in my home country.

Pulling the plug just hit me the longer I'm kept alive the longer the money keeps coming in. So I going to scratch that one off my list

The person who gets the monthly money.

Your theory on the banks sounds good. But, thus far I have not seen a widow who didn't have a problem with that.

My wife has been told to get the ATM card and empty that puppy.

Users results can vary this Thailand what they say and what they do can often be two different things.