Parents Pass Away – How Is the Inheritance Divided: A Guide for Heirs and Estate Administrators

When the bank says "we need a court order first"

The funeral has just finished. The bank won't allow a withdrawal. The land can't be transferred. And people in the house have started talking about the assets.

⚠️ The most important warning in this guide The common saying that "inheritance cases must be filed within one year" is not entirely wrong. The general rule for inheritance cases is 1 year, and as a general principle, a claim cannot go beyond the 10-year cap counted from the date of the deceased's death. Both of these layers are in Section 1754. Unless the law provides a specific exception, such as an heir who possesses the inheritance property under Section 1748, keep this framework in mind first, and then consider whether your case falls under an exception — rather than starting from the hope that an exception will help. The starting point for counting is not the same for every matter. At least three matters must be distinguished — the right of an heir to claim inheritance property · a creditor's claim to demand payment of a debt from the estate · the right of a beneficiary under the provisions of a will. Some periods count from the date of death; some count from the date the entitled person knew or ought to have known of the death. As for the beneficiary layer, it counts from the date the beneficiary knew or ought to have known of the right they hold under the will, which may be a different day from the day they learned of the death — especially in the case of a secret document will that was only opened later. But as a general rule, every layer hits the same 10-year cap, unless an exception under Section 1748 applies. The exception that can change the entire answer is an heir who already possesses the inheritance property, who under Section 1748 still has the right to demand a share of the inheritance property in their possession even after the prescription period under Section 1754 has lapsed — that is, past both the 1-year layer and the 10-year cap — as long as they still possess that property. Another case is when an estate administrator has entered to manage the estate, in which a claim against the estate administrator has its own separate time limit. ❗ Do not wait just because you have sent a demand letter. Sending a demand letter unilaterally, on its own, normally does not interrupt the prescription period. A demand letter has value in showing that you have not consented and have not abandoned your right, but it does not buy you time. Many families send demand letters every year until the time limit passes without realizing it. The result is: the parents having died three years ago does not always mean you have lost your right, and a death that occurred just last month does not mean there is plenty of time either. Have a lawyer look at the date of death, the date you learned of the death, and the actual state of possession of the property, then count backward from today to see how much time remains.

Statutory Heirs: Who Gets First, Who Gets Nothing

First, the marital property of the surviving spouse is not part of the estate. The spouse's share must be separated out first. Only the deceased's share in the marital property plus the deceased's separate property constitutes the estate. The method of separation is explained in the guide to filing for divorce and dividing marital property. Couples who live together without registering their marriage are not statutory heirs, no matter how many decades they have lived together.

There are 6 classes of statutory heirs: (1) descendants — children, including grandchildren who take by representation (2) the deceased's parents (3) siblings of the same father and mother (4) siblings of different fathers or mothers (5) paternal and maternal grandparents (6) paternal and maternal uncles and aunts.

An earlier class excludes the later classes. If even one heir in class 1 exists, classes 3 to 6 receive nothing. The deceased's siblings therefore usually have no right if the deceased had children. The exception is the parents, who are not excluded along with the other classes. And if one of the deceased's children died before the deceased, that child's children step in to take the inheritance by way of representation in the share that their own father or mother would have received. A registered spouse is always a statutory heir, but the share is not fixed; it depends on which class of heirs remains. This guide does not set out the proportional figures because they must be calculated from the actual family tree.

Those who must prove more — A child whose parents did not register their marriage is always a statutory heir of the mother. On the father's side, there must be acknowledgment, which may be acknowledgment under the law, such as registering the acknowledgment of the child or having a court judgment, or acknowledgment by conduct in which the father showed that he accepted the child as his own, such as the father being the one who notified the authorities that the child was his child, allowing the child to use his surname, supporting and raising the child, and openly presenting the child to the public as his own. A caution that makes many matters go wrong is that the mother herself naming the father in the documents may still not be sufficient because what must be proved is the father's conduct, not the mother's account. Families in this situation should therefore keep photographs, messages, evidence of money transfers, and a list of witnesses who saw the child being raised, from the outset · A registered adopted child, as a general rule, has the right to inherit from the adoptive parent, but a stepchild who was not registered is not a statutory heir · A child in the mother's womb on the date the deceased died has the right to inherit if the child is later born alive, and the law provides a helpful presumption: if a child is born alive within 310 days from the date of the deceased's death, it is presumed that the child was already in the mother's womb at the time of the deceased's death. A household with this situation should inform the estate administrator and the court from the outset; do not go ahead and finish dividing the estate before the child is born.

If There Is a Will

A valid will takes precedence over the statutory heirs for the assets specified in it. Assets not mentioned in the will are divided according to the normal statutory succession order.

Thai law recognizes 5 types of wills — not just one: an ordinary will signed in the presence of at least two witnesses at the same time · a holographic will written entirely in the testator's own handwriting · an official will made before an official at the district office · a secret will that is sealed and presented to an official · and an oral will made under special circumstances. Each type has its own conditions, and wills made before an official tend to be more difficult to challenge.

The most common trap relates to witnesses. A witness should not be a beneficiary under the will or the spouse of a beneficiary. Many families have the child who is to receive the house sign as a witness. The point that is often misunderstood is that the effect falls on the provision giving assets to that witness or the witness's spouse — it does not invalidate the entire will.

If you have not yet made a will and would like a brief overview before deciding, read What to Know Before Drawing Up a Document to Transfer Assets to Your Children and Grandchildren.

If the deceased or the heirs are foreign nationals, or the assets are located in several countries, see A Guide to Wills and Inheritance for Foreigners.

In which cases is it often necessary to appoint an estate administrator?

Inheritance passes immediately upon the death of the deceased, but institutions holding the assets generally will not release them until there is a person legally authorized to receive them on behalf of the estate. Banks freeze accounts as soon as they learn of the death, because if they pay out to one child and other heirs later make claims, the bank itself must bear liability. Land offices and insurance companies act on the same reasoning. A court order appointing an estate administrator is therefore the document that makes all parties confident enough to release the assets.

But not every estate requires a court order. Before deciding to file a petition, go through the assets item by item first, because some items already have a legally valid path without going through court.

• Land and condominium units. The Department of Land has a procedure for registering the transfer of inheritance without requiring an estate administrator if all heirs agree, the documents are complete, and no one objects during the public notice period. Details are in the next section.
• Life insurance with a named beneficiary. As a rule, the insurance company pays directly to the named beneficiary; it does not pass through the estate and does not require waiting for an estate administrator. The money becomes part of the estate only when there is no named beneficiary or the conditions set out in the policy and the law apply, such as the beneficiary having died earlier. You should therefore read the policy page clearly before assuming the whole amount is part of the estate.
• Deposits of small amounts, relief benefits, provident funds, and certain other welfare benefits. Each institution has its own internal regulations. Some are willing to pay the heirs even without an estate administrator, using a letter of consent from all heirs instead. You should call and ask about the conditions of each institution first rather than automatically filing a court application for everything.

The cases that truly often require an estate administrator are when: one of the heirs disagrees or cannot be contacted · an heir is a minor or an incompetent person · the assets are of many types spread across several provinces · the institution holding the assets insists on a court order as a condition · the estate has debts to be paid or pending litigation · or there is a will that requires an intermediary to administer it in accordance with its terms.

❗ While there is still no estate administrator, do not use the deceased's ATM card, banking app, or codes to withdraw money for your own use — even if it is to pay for the funeral. You may be accused of misappropriating or concealing estate assets, which could result in being deprived of the right to inherit, and there is also separate criminal liability. If you must advance funeral expenses, pay with the advance payer's own money, keep the receipts, and later request reimbursement from the estate. Do not arbitrarily use the deceased's card, codes, or online account.

What must be clearly understood is that being deprived of the right to inherit does not occur automatically from every withdrawal of money. The law sets out the elements: there must be a misappropriation or concealment of estate assets, by fraud or with knowledge that one is causing other heirs to lose benefits. This is a matter that must be proved in court as to whether the elements are met; it is not permission to withdraw as long as you have receipts. Moreover, this point concerns only the issue of being deprived of the right to inherit — it does not make the use of the deceased's card, codes, or app permissible. Criminal liability for using another person's card and account is a separate matter, and funeral expense receipts do not erase that. The person who withdrew money from the deceased's account therefore always bears the burden of proving themselves; by the time the matter ends, time and family relationships have already been lost. A much safer path is not to touch the deceased's account in the first place, and instead to use the method of advancing payment from your own money and later requesting reimbursement from the estate, as described above.

Land: Registering the inheritance without going through court

For land only, if all heirs agree and documents are complete, you can directly file a request for registration of inheritance at the Land Office. The official will post a public notice for interested parties to object first. If an heir comes forward to dispute, the land official will conduct an inquiry and try to reconcile the parties first. If they cannot agree, the official will issue an order as deemed appropriate, and the dissatisfied party must file a lawsuit in court within 60 days from the date of receiving the notice, and must present evidence of the filed lawsuit to the official.

⚠️ This 60-day period is a time limit for the registration procedure, not the prescription barring the original cause of action. But do not read this as a safety net. If you do not file a lawsuit and present evidence of the filing within 60 days, the official will proceed with the registration in accordance with that order. The name in the title deed will actually be changed to the other party's, and once he has the name in the register, he can then transfer, sell, or mortgage to an outsider. If the outsider acquired it in good faith and for value, recovering the land becomes much harder, and you may be left only with a claim for damages against the heir who transferred it — which may not equal the value of the land and sometimes cannot be executed against anything at all. You should therefore not let this 60-day deadline pass idly. On the other hand, filing a lawsuit within the 60 days does not mean you will win the case; it is only a way to preserve the status so that the registration does not proceed before the case is resolved.

Petitioning to Appoint an Estate Administrator and the Duties That Follow

Complete the list of relatives first. Every heir must be named, even those you have not been in contact with for a long time. Deliberately omitting one heir to make the matter proceed faster is one of the leading causes of a court order being revoked later. An heir who refuses to sign a consent does not prevent the matter from proceeding; you only need to name that person in the petition.

File the petition with the court of the place where the deceased had domicile at the time of death — not the court where the heirs live, and not always the court where the property is located. If the name in the house registration is in a different province from the actual residence, the lawyer should check the court's jurisdiction before filing. The main documents are the death certificate, the house registration from which the deceased's name has been removed, documents proving heirship, and documents showing the estate property. The estate administrator does not have to be an heir, and several administrators may be appointed jointly as a check and balance. As for persons prohibited by law from serving, the principal categories are minors, persons of unsound mind or persons whom the court has ordered to be incompetent or quasi-incompetent, and persons whom the court has ordered to be bankrupt.

The estate administrator acts on behalf of the estate, not as its owner. Signing a register in the capacity of estate administrator is a documentary step; it does not confer ownership. The duties are to prepare an inventory of the estate assets in the presence of witnesses within the time period prescribed by law — which begins running sooner than most people think — and then to gather the assets, pay the debts, and distribute the remainder to the heirs according to their entitlements. The law sets a time frame for completing the administration; it does not allow it to remain open indefinitely. What cannot be done is taking estate assets beyond the portion to which one is entitled, selling estate property to oneself or to one's own spouse where the will does not authorize it and no prior permission has been obtained from the court, or distributing the estate while skipping over some heirs. An administrator who has a genuine necessity therefore has a lawful path: apply to the court for permission before acting, rather than acting first and explaining later. Claims against the estate administrator have their own limitation period, which begins to run from the date the administration of the estate is completed — not from the date of the deceased's death.

Conversely, an administrator who is also an heir may receive estate property according to his or her share in the ordinary way. The fact that the eldest sibling, appointed by the court as estate administrator, also receives his or her own share is not inherently wrong and is not by itself a ground for revocation. What is wrong is taking more than one's entitlement, using the powers of estate administrator in a way contrary to the interests of the estate, or concealing assets so that they are not included in the estate inventory. Younger siblings who begin to feel uneasy should therefore start by requesting in writing to see the estate inventory before concluding that they have been cheated.

If the estate administrator truly neglects his or her duties, an heir or an interested person may petition the court to revoke the estate administrator under Section 1727. Grounds must be shown, such as failing to perform duties or other reasonable grounds. The point where many people go wrong is the time limit — the petition for revocation must be filed before the distribution of the estate is completed. Once the distribution is completed, this avenue closes. What remains may have to turn into suing to recover the property, suing for damages, or seeking relief on another basis, each of which has a heavier burden of proof and its own time limit that is more difficult than before. If you begin to see that the administration is irregular, do not wait until everything is over before consulting a lawyer.

Debts of the Deceased and Inheritance Tax

As a general rule, heirs are not liable for the deceased's debts beyond the estate that has passed to them, but it must be understood correctly that this limitation is limited to the value of the estate you received, not an absolute shield protecting each of your assets. If you receive an inheritance and then spend it, resell it, or mix it with your own property until it can no longer be distinguished, the creditors of the estate can still claim against you within the amount equal to the value of the estate you received. So a broad statement like "creditors cannot touch the house the child bought with their own money" is not safe enough, because once liability within that limit arises, debt enforcement proceeds in accordance with the ordinary execution of judgments law. A method of protection that actually works is to keep a clear record of estate assets, separate accounts and separate estate property from personal property, and keep evidence of what you received and its value so that you can prove the cap on your liability. As for guarantors or co-debtors, they remain liable in that capacity for the full amount, and mortgage creditors can still enforce against the mortgaged property. We have briefly explained this issue in an article on debts passed down to children and descendants for those who are just getting started.

The most important thing to be careful about is do not sign a debt acknowledgment document on behalf of the deceased before having a lawyer read every line. The fact is that signing does not automatically turn you into a full debtor in every case. The result depends on the wording in the document — whether it is merely an acknowledgment of the estate's debt balance in your capacity as an heir, or whether it is an assumption of the debt as your own, entry into a guarantee, or creation of a new debt. These last three bind you in your personal capacity, which is no longer capped by the value of the estate. Documents that officials pressure you to sign "for convenience" often have wording of this kind mixed into the final paragraphs. If you are pressured, always ask for a copy to take back and read first.

On inheritance tax, the point most misunderstood is the base used for calculation. This tax is calculated from the net inheritance each recipient receives from each deceased person, not from the entire estate as a whole, and it is collected only on property types prescribed by law — not on every asset in the house. Each recipient therefore must look at their own receipt, not look at the household total and panic together. The essential points to know before talking to officials are as follows.

This means that most estates in Thailand do not reach the inheritance tax threshold at all, and the spouse of the deceased is exempt from the outset. What ordinary families actually encounter is therefore usually fees at the stage of registering the land transfer, for which an inheritance transfer through the registry has a reduced rate for transfers between ascendants and descendants, or between spouses — it does not apply to the broad label of "direct-line heirs". Other groups of heirs, such as siblings or uncles and aunts who receive the inheritance, are not automatically in the reduced-rate group. That said, the thresholds, rates, and types of taxable property are adjusted periodically, so you should check with the land office and the Revenue Department on the actual filing date, and do not use figures that relatives paid several years ago as your basis.

One Sibling Lives in That House and Refuses to Divide the Inheritance

Possessing inherited property does not automatically mean the property belongs to the possessor. But as time goes by, the issue shifts to the nature of possession — whether he possesses it on behalf of the other heirs or for himself, whether he has paid land tax or entered into contracts in his own name. The result therefore depends on the facts, not only on the number of years. What can be done immediately without having to file a lawsuit first is: send a written demand letter requesting division of the estate and keep proof of delivery. This shows that you have not consented and have not abandoned your rights.

❗ To repeat, because this is the misunderstanding that causes people to lose their rights the most — a unilateral demand letter, on its own, does not normally interrupt the limitation period. It is good evidence, but it is not an extension of time. If, after sending it, the other side stays silent or keeps stalling, treat the clock as still running within the 1-year period and the 10-year cap under Section 1754 of the Civil and Commercial Code. Unless your case falls under an exception — for example, you yourself are an heir who also possesses that estate under Section 1748 of the Civil and Commercial Code — then promptly have a lawyer assess when you must file a lawsuit. Do not let family negotiations consume time until the deadline passes.

On the other hand, do not sign any document containing the words "renunciation of inheritance" or "waiver of rights" before you understand its consequences. Renunciation of inheritance must be made in the form prescribed by law; as a rule, it cannot be revoked, and it cannot be done partially or conditionally.

Where to Begin

Most inheritance disputes do not start from greed, but from silence. The first month should be spent obtaining the death certificate, removing the deceased's name from the house registration, making a list of assets and liabilities, and disclosing that list to all heirs for mutual review. At the same time, clearly record both the date of death of the deceased and the date you learned of the death side by side, because the date of death is the starting point of the 10-year limit under Section 1754, while the 1-year period in certain cases begins from the date on which the entitled person knew or should have known of the death. Both dates are therefore facts that a lawyer must use. If you learned of the news later, for example because you were abroad or had not been in contact with your family for a long time, you should keep evidence of when you learned of it.

An initial consultation with our inheritance team is free of charge. Call 092-254-2045. We will help review who the heirs are, which court to file with, which assets can be transferred without appointing an estate administrator, and whether any deadlines are approaching that you may miss. Or tell us your story here. See the scope of our work at Estate and Will Services.

Read more

• Filing for Divorce, Dividing Marital Property, and Child Custody Rights
• Wills and Inheritance in Thailand for Foreigners
• Debt Collection, Suing Debtors, and Enforcement
• Lawyer Fees in Thailand

This guide is prepared by Suwanvara Law Firm — a law firm in Khon Kaen, established in B.E. 2529. It is general information, not legal advice for any specific case. The outcome of each matter depends on the facts of that family. You should consult a lawyer before taking action.