NRI Succession & Inheritance
NRI Succession and Inheritance Lawyers in Bangalore
Wills for Indian assets, succession certificates, probate, partition and repatriation, handled for heirs living abroad. Most of it can be done without you boarding a flight.
We aim to respond within 24 hours.
- Heirs in the US, UK, Gulf, Singapore & Australia
- Video consultations across time zones
- Confidential by default
- Karnataka High Court & Bengaluru civil courts
The rules changed in December 2025, and most people have not been told.
NRI succession and inheritance in India used to begin with the same sentence from every lawyer: first you will need probate. That is no longer true. The Repealing and Amending Act, 2025, which received Presidential assent on 20 December 2025, omitted Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 altogether. Section 213 was the provision that stopped an executor or a legatee from establishing any right under a will in court unless probate had first been granted. With it gone, a beneficiary can rely on the will itself.
For an heir living in Dubai or New Jersey, that is not a technicality. It removes a mandatory court proceeding, its ad valorem court fee and its year or more of waiting, from the front of the queue. It also removes the legal basis on which banks and cooperative housing societies used to insist on probate before they would talk to you. We have written the repeal up in full here, including what it does not change.
What has not changed is everything that makes these matters hard in the first place: proving a will when the attesting witnesses have scattered, heirs who cannot agree across three time zones, a nominee who has already emptied the account, a cousin living in the house, and the FEMA and tax path that stands between an Indian asset and your bank account abroad. Those are the problems this practice is built around. If your matter is broader than succession, our general NRI legal services desk covers property disputes, power of attorney and NRI divorce.
The single most useful thing you can do, if you still have the choice, is make the will before it is needed. A properly executed India-specific will costs a fraction of what a contested succession costs, and it is the one document that decides whether your family spends the next two years talking to each other or to a court. Our guide to how an NRI should make a will for Indian assets sets out how.
The law at a glance
Repealed
Probate is no longer compulsory
Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 was omitted by the Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 (assent 20 December 2025). A legatee can now rely on the will directly in court.
USD 1M
Repatriation ceiling per financial year
The general FEMA limit for remitting an inheritance or sale proceeds abroad from an NRO account, after tax and Form 15CA/15CB compliance.
Rule 24
You cannot buy it, you can inherit it
FEMA (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019. An NRI or OCI cannot purchase agricultural land, a farmhouse or plantation property, but may inherit it.
S.372
Succession certificate application
Indian Succession Act, 1925. The court route to collect bank deposits, shares and other debts and securities of a deceased relative.
Statements of the general legal position as at August 2026, not commitments. Every estate turns on its own facts and documents.
What we handle
Succession and inheritance work for NRI clients
Nine kinds of matter cover almost everything that reaches us from abroad, from a will that needs drafting to a house that needs recovering.
Wills for Indian assets
A separate India-specific will, executed and attested so it survives a challenge, and drafted so it does not accidentally revoke your foreign will.
Succession certificate petitions
Section 372 petitions to release bank deposits, fixed deposits, shares and mutual funds where the deceased left no will.
Probate and letters of administration
Still available, and still worth taking where a bank or a housing society is difficult or the will is likely to be contested.
Legal heir certificate and mutation
Tahsildar heirship certificates and revenue or BBMP khata mutation, so the property records finally carry your name.
Partition of ancestral property
Partition suits and family settlements where siblings in three countries cannot agree on one house in Bengaluru.
Relatives occupying inherited property
Recovery of possession, injunctions and eviction where a caretaker, tenant or cousin has treated your absence as ownership.
Nominee against legal heir disputes
Shares, deposits and insurance where the nominee is refusing to hand over. Nomination is not inheritance, and the Supreme Court has now said so.
Repatriating the inheritance
The FEMA and tax path from an Indian asset to your account abroad: NRO routing, Form 15CA and 15CB, and the USD 1 million ceiling.
Contesting or defending a will
Suspicious circumstances, undue influence, capacity and the attesting witness rule, whether you are challenging the will or upholding it.
The framework
The statutes that decide your matter
Indian Succession Act, 1925
- S.59
- S.63
- S.222
- S.276
- S.370
- S.372
Capacity to make a will, how an unprivileged will must be executed and attested, probate, and succession certificates. Section 213, which made probate compulsory for certain wills, was omitted in December 2025.
Hindu Succession Act, 1956
- S.6
- S.8
- S.15
- S.16
Coparcenary rights of daughters, the order of intestate succession for a Hindu male, and the separate scheme that applies when a Hindu woman dies without a will.
FEMA (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019
- Rule 24
What an NRI or OCI may acquire, hold and transfer. Purchase of agricultural land, farmhouses and plantation property is barred. Inheritance of the same property is permitted.
Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023
- S.67
The successor to Section 68 of the Evidence Act. At least one attesting witness must be called to prove a will, and registration does not excuse this, because the proviso expressly excludes wills.
Repealing and Amending Act, 2025
- Omission of S.213 ISA
Received Presidential assent on 20 December 2025. Probate and letters of administration move from mandatory to optional as a precondition for establishing rights under a will.
Choosing a route
Which instrument do you actually need?
| Will exists | No will (intestate) | Only bank or securities involved | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you apply for | Nothing, in most cases. Since the 2025 repeal you can rely on the will itself. Probate remains optional. | Legal heir certificate for most purposes, or letters of administration where a court order is needed. | Succession certificate under Section 372. |
| Where it is filed | District Court or High Court on the original side, if you choose to take probate. | Tahsildar for the heirship certificate. District Court for letters of administration. | District Court where the deceased ordinarily resided or where the assets are. |
| Typical timeline | Immediate if you rely on the will. Six to eighteen months if probate is taken and uncontested. | Four to twelve weeks for a heirship certificate. Six to eighteen months for letters of administration. | Five to twelve months, longer if an heir objects. |
| Main cost driver | Court fee on the value of the estate, where probate is sought. | Nominal for a heirship certificate. Ad valorem court fee for letters of administration. | Ad valorem court fee on the value of the debts and securities claimed. |
| Where it usually goes wrong | The attesting witnesses cannot be traced years later. | One heir is untraceable abroad, or a second family surfaces. | A nominee has already withdrawn the money. |
Timelines and costs are indicative ranges for uncontested matters in Bengaluru, not commitments. A single objection changes all of them.
How we work with heirs abroad
From first call to money in your account
- 1
Video consultation and asset map
Week 1We list every Indian asset: property, bank accounts, deposits, shares, mutual funds, insurance and provident fund. Half the delay in NRI succession matters comes from discovering an asset in month nine.
- 2
Written opinion on the route
1 to 2 weeksWhich asset needs which instrument, whether probate is worth taking now that it is optional, who the heirs are in law, and what the likely court fee will be. You get this in writing before anything is filed.
- 3
Power of attorney executed abroad
2 to 4 weeksDrafted here, signed before the Indian consulate or apostilled locally, then stamped in India within three months of receipt under Section 18 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899.
- 4
Filing and heir notice
1 to 3 monthsPetition filed, court fee paid, and notice issued to all heirs and by publication. This is the stage where a disputed matter shows itself.
- 5
Order, mutation and release
6 to 18 monthsCertificate or grant obtained, khata mutated, and the bank or depository instructed to release. Contested matters run longer.
- 6
Repatriation
4 to 8 weeks after releaseProceeds routed through the NRO account, Form 15CA and a chartered accountant's Form 15CB filed, and the remittance made within the USD 1 million per financial year ceiling.
Durations are indicative and depend on court workload, the number of heirs and whether anyone objects.
The judgments that decide these matters
Four decisions that change the answer in most NRI succession disputes
Shakti Yezdani v Jayanand Jayant Salgaonkar
Supreme Court, 14 December 2023
A nominee of company shares does not become the owner. Nomination under the Companies Act does not create a third mode of succession and does not override succession law. The nominee holds for the legal heirs.
Why it matters to you. This is the answer to the relative who says the shares or the deposit are theirs because they were the nominee.
Vineeta Sharma v Rakesh Sharma
(2020) 9 SCC 1, Supreme Court, 11 August 2020
A daughter is a coparcener by birth in the same manner as a son. It does not matter whether the father was alive on 9 September 2005, when the 2005 amendment came into force.
Why it matters to you. Sisters abroad are routinely told they gave up their share by marrying or by leaving India. They did not.
Arunachala Gounder v Ponnusamy
(2022) 11 SCC 520, Supreme Court, January 2022
Where a Hindu male dies intestate leaving self-acquired property, it devolves by inheritance and not by survivorship, and his daughter inherits in preference to collaterals such as a brother's sons.
Why it matters to you. It settles the common Bengaluru dispute where an uncle's family claims a self-acquired house ahead of the daughter.
The attesting witness rule
Section 67, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023
At least one attesting witness must be called to prove a will. Registration does not remove this requirement, because the proviso that excuses registered documents expressly excludes wills.
Why it matters to you. It is why a registered will is not automatically a safe will, and why witness details must be recorded when the will is signed.
Case summaries are provided for general understanding. Whether a decision helps or hurts your matter depends on facts we would need to see.
Where you might be right now
Situations that reach us from abroad every month
A parent has died and the bank will not release the deposit?
Banks routinely ask for probate or a succession certificate even where the law does not require it. We identify which instrument is actually needed and, where the bank is overreaching, say so in writing to the branch before spending a year in court.
The nominee has taken the money and says it is theirs?
A nominee holds for the estate, not for themselves. In Shakti Yezdani v Jayanand Jayant Salgaonkar the Supreme Court held in December 2023 that nomination under the Companies Act does not override succession law. We pursue recovery on that footing.
A relative has been living in the inherited house for years?
Time works against you here. We move for injunction and possession, and we check whether any adverse possession claim has started to run before it becomes a real defence.
A will has surfaced that you believe is not genuine?
The person propounding the will has to prove it, and must call an attesting witness. Where the circumstances are suspicious, that burden gets heavier. We assess the document before you commit to a challenge.
Three siblings in three countries and one house in Bengaluru?
A registered family settlement is almost always cheaper and faster than a partition suit. We attempt that first, and file for partition only if it fails.
You have the money in India and cannot get it out?
This is usually a documentation problem, not a legal bar. We work with your chartered accountant on the NRO routing, the tax clearance and the Form 15CA and 15CB filings.
Find out which instrument your matter actually needs
One video call is usually enough to tell you whether this is a four-week certificate or a two-year suit, and what it will cost.
Every enquiry is privileged and confidential. Nothing you share leaves this firm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is probate still compulsory in India for an NRI beneficiary?+−
No. Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, which barred an executor or legatee from establishing rights under a will without probate, was omitted by the Repealing and Amending Act, 2025, which received Presidential assent on 20 December 2025. A beneficiary can now rely on the will directly. Probate and letters of administration still exist and can still be applied for, and they remain worth taking where the will is likely to be contested, where a bank or housing society is being difficult, or where there are foreign assets.
Can an NRI inherit agricultural land in India?+−
Yes. Rule 24 of the FEMA (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019 bars an NRI or OCI from purchasing agricultural land, a farmhouse or plantation property, but inheritance is treated differently and is permitted, whether under a will or by intestate succession. Note that receiving agricultural property as a gift is not permitted, so the route by which the property comes to you matters.
How much of an inheritance can an NRI send abroad?+−
The general FEMA position allows remittance of up to USD 1 million per financial year from an NRO account, after applicable Indian taxes are paid and Form 15CA and a chartered accountant's Form 15CB are filed. The ceiling applies in aggregate for the financial year, not per property, so selling two properties in the same year does not double it.
Do I need a separate will for my Indian assets?+−
In most cases yes. A separate India-specific will avoids the delay and cost of proving a foreign will here, and it can be drafted to deal only with Indian assets. The critical drafting point is the revocation clause: a badly worded one in either will can revoke the other, which is how people accidentally die intestate in one country.
What is the difference between a succession certificate and a legal heir certificate?+−
A succession certificate is granted by a civil court under Section 372 of the Indian Succession Act and covers debts and securities, meaning bank deposits, shares, mutual funds and similar. A legal heir certificate is issued administratively by the Tahsildar and is used for pensions, provident fund, insurance claims and property mutation. They are not interchangeable, and banks generally will not accept a heirship certificate in place of a succession certificate.
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