This is the first decision in an NRI estate plan and almost every other decision follows from it. There is no rule of Indian law that forces the choice either way. A single will covering worldwide assets is perfectly valid here, and a separate Indian will is perfectly valid here. What differs is not validity but the cost and delay your family will face when they try to use the document, and that difference is large enough to decide the question in most families.
Why the situs of the asset drives the answer
Indian law starts from a split that runs through the whole subject. The Indian Succession Act, 1925 provides that succession to immovable property in India is regulated by the law of India wherever the deceased may have had his domicile at the time of his death, and that succession to movable property is regulated by the law of the country in which he was domiciled when he died. So your Bengaluru flat is an Indian law question no matter where you live and no matter what passport you hold. Your Dubai bank balance is not.
One caution, because that provision is routinely quoted too widely. It sits in a Part of the Act which the Act says does not apply where the deceased was a Hindu, Muhammadan, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina, and for those communities the personal law statutes do the work instead. The outcome for Indian land is the same either way, but the route differs and it matters once you get to movables.
What two wills actually buys you
The advantage is procedural and it is worth real money. An Indian will, executed in India in the form Indian courts expect, can be produced to a bank, a sub-registrar or a court here on its own footing. A single global will has to be brought to India, established here, and often taken through an ancillary grant before an Indian beneficiary can touch an Indian asset. That means your children in Bengaluru wait on a probate registry in another country before they can deal with a flat that never left India. Our guide on how an NRI should make a will for Indian assets works through the comparison in more detail.
Nearly every will opens by revoking all former wills and testamentary dispositions. Put that standard clause in the second of two wills and you have just cancelled the first one. Each will must revoke only earlier wills dealing with the assets of that jurisdiction, and should positively recite that a separate will deals with assets elsewhere and is not affected. If you already hold wills in two countries, check the clause in whichever was signed later, today.
How the Indian will has to be executed
The Indian Succession Act sets out the formalities for an unprivileged will and they are short and unforgiving. The testator signs, or affixes a mark, or another person signs in his presence and by his direction, and the signature must be placed so that it appears he intended to give effect to the writing as a will. Two or more witnesses must attest. Each must have seen the testator sign or have received a personal acknowledgement of the signature from him, and each must sign in the testator's presence. They do not have to be present at the same time as each other. Separately, the Act requires a sound mind and excludes minors from making a will at all. Our guide on making a valid will in India sets out the execution steps and the common defects.
Three drafting points that matter more for an NRI than for a resident
- Pick witnesses who can be found in twenty years. This is the single most neglected point. An Indian will still has to be proved by calling an attesting witness where one is alive and available, and a witness who was a colleague in Dubai in 2026 is not a witness anyone can produce in a Bengaluru court in 2046. Prefer people materially younger than you, and keep a separate note of their full names, addresses, identity document numbers and contact details with the will.
- Do not use a beneficiary as a witness. The Act makes a bequest to an attesting witness void in the cases it governs, and even where the gift survives it hands a challenger a ready made suspicious circumstance for free.
- Describe the Indian assets so a stranger can identify them. Survey numbers, khata numbers, apartment numbers, folio and account numbers. A will that says "my property in Bangalore" creates the dispute it was meant to prevent.
What the will still cannot do
A will disposes only of what is yours to dispose of. An interest in Hindu coparcenary property, a jointly held asset, and an asset already covered by a binding family arrangement are all different questions, and the answer is not improved by a confident clause in a will.
On probate, so you plan against the current law
The mandatory probate requirement that used to sit in the Indian Succession Act was removed in December 2025, so a beneficiary can now rely on the will itself rather than being shut out of court until a grant is obtained. Our note on what changed when the probate requirement went explains the scope of that change. It removed a gate. It did not make wills self proving, it did not stop banks and societies asking for a grant as a matter of internal policy, and it did not make a contested estate uncontested. Draft on the basis that your will may still have to be proved.