Dear readers,
I have a question on behalf of my father. He lived in Thailand from 2003 to 2022 and also married a Thai woman there. He now returned to live in the Netherlands in 2022 due to health reasons, but remained married to his wife. Now unfortunately she passed away a few weeks ago and we have the next problem, getting the death certificate to show to the Dutch authorities that his wife died before his state pension, since he now receives the partner state pension.
We have already looked up how to legalize the document by first getting a stamp on the original deed from the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then a stamp from the Dutch embassy in Bangkok. You can then have the legalized document translated in the Netherlands by a recognized translator.
Now my father is still in contact with a friend of his wife in Thailand and he also had a photo of that death certificate, but he tried to explain the legalization of the death certificate, but due to the language barrier they did not understand each other and Not exactly what the intention is.
Unfortunately, my father (83) is no longer able to travel to Thailand himself to arrange this, no matter how much he would like to do so. So my question is does anyone have any ideas on how to arrange this?
Regards,
Frank
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Frank, have you already contacted the SVB? Does the SVB require a legalized death certificate?
I think that if your father informs the SVB that his wife has died and that he lives in the Netherlands as a single person, the SVB should accept that without question. Someone who reports the death of their partner isn't lying about it, is they? You can also show a photo of the death certificate. This is especially true because your father is asking for a lower benefit, not a higher one.
If I read correctly, your father came to the Netherlands in 2022 and his wife stayed in TH. His wife passed away at the end of 2023. I wonder whether living permanently separated in 2002 should not already have had consequences for the partner allowance and the amount of the benefit. Wasn't that communicated to the SVB at the time?
In case the death certificate needs to be legalized, you can hire someone in Thailand who you can contact in Dutch or English. Then it is useful to first indicate in which city and province the original deed is located and possibly someone who wants to arrange this will contact you here. Otherwise you will have to find a Thai lawyer.
Sorry, typo in third paragraph. Must be 2022.
Father called SVB and they believe him, but unfortunately they really need those 2 stamps, the municipality says the same. His wife died in hospital in Nakhon Sawan and lived in Banphot Phisai
Frank, I have no family or friends in that region so I can't help you further.
Thailand is not an EU and is not a signatory of the apostille treaty, so you cannot avoid the official procedure in this case.
Partner allowance will certainly expire upon the death of the spouse. However, this will be replaced by the significantly higher AOW for singles.
Frank could read the information in the following link, it concerns the Netherlands worldwide in which a lot is explained, it is a site of the central government.
https://www.nederlandwereldwijd.nl/legaliseren/buitenlandse-documenten/thailand
It says that an English-language declaration of death can be requested, you no longer need a translation plus legalization of the translation. You can also translate the Thai documents in Thailand and this will be faster and considerably cheaper than having this done in the Netherlands. But as mentioned, request death certificates in English (especially because you will have to submit them to the various Dutch authorities). You can also ask for mediation to have it done, the site also states.
Ger-Korat, the partner allowance depends/depended on the age of the partner. How can you say that it was less than the difference between the 50% and 70% benefit? Or you knew the age of the lady, but it is not stated in the question... The AOW for singles is 40% higher than the 50% benefit; well, I know and knew partner allowances that were considerably higher.
The amount of the partner allowance is 50% of the minimum wage, I read. You are right that this is higher than the difference you will receive when the single AOW commences, the partner AOW was a generous arrangement. This partner allowance stops when the partner reaches the age of 65. By the way, we don't know when they got married, if it was after 2015 then you were no longer entitled to it, it also depended on the lady's official income. AOW partner allowance is something that is outside the scope of the story because we do not know the data.
I think it would be easiest to ask a direct Thai family member to arrange the English-language death declarations at the Amphur (municipality) (immediately request more than 1 for the various authorities such as perhaps a pension fund or municipality). Then you are not in a position to arrange an authorization from the Netherlands. As a Thai family member, child or brother or sister, it should be easy to arrange.
In the link you posted here you can also read about the above case
https://www.nederlandwereldwijd.nl/aow-buiten-nederland/overlijden-doorgeven
if this can help Frank's father
mvg
Pratana
Dear editors,
We live in the Banphot Phisai area in Nakhon Sawan and my wife is willing to help get a death certificate.
You can pass my email address on to the family for further information.
Yours faithfully,
Nico
This would be great!
I will wait for the editors to receive your email.
Yours faithfully,
Frank
Dear Nico, I have read in the conditions that the editors do not forward email addresses, so I have created a temporary new email address where you can reach me.
The email address is: [email protected]
Yours faithfully,
Frank.
Dear Frank, you ask how you can obtain the death certificate of your father's wife. This certificate is requested by the SVB and you have already contacted that authority: the SVB wants an officially stamped and legalized copy. If I had said that straight away, there would have been no confusion about it. Now you immediately end up in a discussion about partner allowance and single state pension by know-it-alls who think they should see your actual question as a reason to demonstrate their better judgment.
A second point that makes your question unclear is that you do not say in which place in Thailand your late wife/your stepmother lived/died. You keep talking about Thailand, but Thailand is more than 2 times the size of the Netherlands in area, more than 12 km long from north to south and more than 1700 km wide from east to west.
What if you indicate in which place your stepmother lived and direct your question to Thailand blog readers who live in the same place and who may want/can make contact with the girlfriend of the deceased who apparently is in possession of the death certificate and can give you one? photocopy of sent? Look, @Nico says he lives in Nakhon Sawan, but if your stepmother died in Ubon, then you are also talking about 700 km. So with a little more clarity and a specific question you will get further.
Henk, if you had read the responses carefully, you would have seen that I had already asked Frank ten hours before your response where the papers were located, and that Frank had already responded nine hours before your response, stating the location where madam has passed away and that is not 'Ubon', by which you possibly mean Ubon Ratchathani. Your reproach comes a bit late.