Section 1654: When capacity is assessed for the testator and the beneficiary
Statutory text (Thai original)
ความสามารถของผู้ทำพินัยกรรมนั้น ให้พิจารณาแต่ในเวลาที่ทำพินัยกรรมเท่านั้นความสามารถของผู้รับพินัยกรรมนั้น ให้พิจารณาแต่ในเวลาที่ผู้ทำพินัยกรรมตายเท่านั้น
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
The capacity of the testator is considered as at the time of making the will only.
The capacity of the beneficiary is considered as at the time of the death of the testator only.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 1654 is part of Book 6 (Succession) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source. The English translation is ThaiLawOnline's own, written from the Thai original and verified against it. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: a testator who was of sound mind when signing is bound by the will even if they later become mentally incapacitated; a later incapacity does not invalidate the will. Conversely, if the intended legatee dies before the testator, the legacy lapses (§1698), the legatee must have capacity to receive at the moment of the testator's death. For clients: having a doctor's assessment at the time of signing can help establish the testator's sound mind if the will is later challenged.
Legislative history
Part of the original Civil and Commercial Code codification; no major subsequent amendment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 1790/2530 (1987)
A will in the official document form, being made by the authorities, needs no certificate from a doctor even where it is made in a hospital, because the district officer or deputy district officer who makes the will has knowledge and ability enough to judge whether the testator is of sound mind. That rests on the way an official document will is made and not on section 1654, whose own rule is that the testator's capacity is considered only as at the time the will is made. The same decision holds that a petition to appoint an estate administrator is lawful although it does not state what obstacle has arisen in administering the estate, where it states that the petitioner is an interested person and attaches the legatee's birth certificate showing that the legatee is a minor: the petitioner may petition under section 1713(1) and Civil Procedure Code section 55.
A will in the official document form was made in a hospital, and it was objected that there was no medical certificate as to the testator's mental state. The Supreme Court held that such a will, being made by the authorities, requires no certificate from a doctor, because the district officer or deputy district officer making it is competent to judge whether the testator is of sound mind. The Court also held the petition to appoint an estate administrator to be lawful even though it did not state the obstacle to administering the estate, because it stated that the petitioner was an interested person and attached the legatee's birth certificate showing the legatee to be a minor, so the petitioner had standing under section 1713(1) with Civil Procedure Code section 55. The decision did not turn on the timing rule in section 1654.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 2 Supreme Court decisions (1946 to 2018)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 6522/2561 (2018)
- Decision 445/2489 (1946)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1654 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 1654. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1654/ (accessed 27 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 1654 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1654/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1654/"><p>The capacity of the testator is considered as at the time of making the will only. The capacity of the beneficiary is considered as at the time of the death of the testator only.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1654 (Thailand): <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1654/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.