This is the most consequential misunderstanding in Indian succession practice, and it is not the reader's fault. The forms use the language of entitlement, institutions treat the nominee as the person in charge, and families reasonably conclude that the nomination decided the question. It did not, and the Supreme Court has said so plainly.
What a nomination is for
A nomination exists to protect the institution, not to distribute the estate. Its function is to give a bank, a company or a society a person it can lawfully deal with the moment a holder dies, so that the asset is not stranded while the family sorts itself out. The statutes are drafted from the institution's point of view, and once you read them that way the position becomes obvious.
- Under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 a nominee becomes entitled to the rights of the depositor to the exclusion of all other persons, and payment to him is a full discharge of the bank's liability, subject to an express proviso that this does not affect the right or claim which any person may have against the person to whom the payment is made.
- Under the Companies Act, 2013 a nominee for securities becomes entitled, on the death of the holder, to all the rights in the securities to the exclusion of all other persons, unless the nomination is varied or cancelled.
- Under the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959 a society, on the death of a member, transfers the share or interest to the person nominated if the nomination subsists, and every transfer or payment made by the society in accordance with the section is valid and effective against any demand made on the society by any other person.
In each case the protection is for the payer. In each case the words are about who receives, not about who keeps.
What the Supreme Court decided
In December 2023, in a case about nomination of company shares, the Supreme Court held that nomination does not confer absolute title on the nominee and does not create a third mode of succession alongside testamentary and intestate succession. The reasoning is about the purpose of nomination provisions generally, and it is the settled position now: a nominee holds, the estate owns.
Do not read this as bad news. You are the person the society or the bank will deal with, you will receive the asset first, and possession and control are worth a great deal in a family dispute. What you must not do is act as though the question of ownership is closed, because dealing with the asset as an absolute owner when you are not one creates a liability you will be asked to answer for later.
The flat specifically
Ask one question before anything else: how is the flat actually held? The answer changes the mechanism entirely.
- Held under a registered sale deed in your father's name, with an apartment owners' association. Here a "nomination" in the association's register has no statutory force over the title at all. The flat is an asset of the estate and passes by the will or by the personal law. What you need is mutation and khata in the names of those actually entitled.
- Held through membership of a co-operative housing society. Then the society's obligation on death is governed by the co-operative statute described above. The society transfers the share or interest to the nominee if the nomination subsists, and otherwise to those appearing to be the heirs on an indemnity bond up to a threshold fixed in the section, or on production of a succession certificate or other legal authority from a competent court above it. Confirm the current threshold before you plan around it. Note also that the section requires the nominee or heir to be admitted as a member of the society.
- Held jointly. Then survivorship and the source of funds both come into it, and the nomination is close to irrelevant.
What this means for you in practice
If the family agrees, the cleanest outcome is a registered family settlement or release recording who takes what, executed once everybody has seen the full asset list. If the family does not agree, you should expect a claim, and you should expect it to be a good one where the personal law gives the other heirs a share. A nominee who sells the flat and distributes nothing is not in a strong position when the suit is filed, and a purchaser from a co-owner takes only what that co-owner had, a point our guide on whether one legal heir can sell jointly inherited property works through.
The documents you will actually need
Nomination gets you to the counter. What gets the records changed is a different set of papers, and which one depends on the asset. Our comparison of the succession certificate, the legal heir certificate, probate and letters of administration sets out the choice, and for bank deposits and securities specifically our guide on obtaining a succession certificate explains the court process. Deal with the paperwork on the footing that the nomination is a convenience the law gave the institution, and you will not be surprised later.