Local Partners
Succession planning advisors in Koh Samui
Succession and estate planning advisors in Koh Samui who keep a Thai business and the family's assets out of probate limbo and away from an avoidable tax bill.
If you own a business or a condo here and your will is sitting in a drawer back home, you have a problem you will never personally find out about. Thailand does not automatically honour a foreign will. Die without a valid Thai one and your shares, bank accounts, and property go through the local probate court under the statutory-heir rules of the Civil and Commercial Code, which can freeze an owner-run business for a year while a judge decides who inherits. I have watched a going concern quietly die in exactly that gap.
A decent advisor in Koh Samui drafts a short Thai will that sits alongside your home-country estate, maps how the company shares actually transfer, and plans around the inheritance tax that bites on anything above 100 million baht per heir, at 5 percent for your children or parents and 10 percent for everyone else. For a family business the real work is governance: who signs, who owns, and how the next generation takes the wheel before a death forces the question at the worst possible time.
Common questions
- Do I need a separate Thai will?
- In almost every case, yes. A foreign will is not automatically recognised here, and leaning on it can lock your Thai assets in the probate court for a year or more. A short Thai will covering your company shares, bank accounts, and property runs alongside your home-country one.
- Is there inheritance tax in Thailand?
- Only above the threshold. The portion of an inheritance above 100 million baht per heir is taxed at 5 percent for direct descendants and ascendants and 10 percent for anyone else. A spouse pays nothing. Below 100 million there is no inheritance tax, though property transfer fees can still apply.
- What happens to my Thai company if I die without a plan?
- The shares pass under Thai intestacy rules and the company is effectively frozen while the estate is settled, which for a business the owner ran day to day usually means it stops trading. A Thai will plus a share-transfer plan is what keeps the doors open.