Estate Planning

What happens if you die without a will

Your assets get distributed under the intestate succession law that applies to your religion, not according to any informal understanding within the family. For most Indians this means the Hindu Succession Act, Muslim personal law, or the Indian Succession Act depending on your faith, each of which fixes specific shares for specific relatives regardless of what you might have actually intended.

Without a will, your family also typically needs a succession certificate or letters of administration from a court before banks, registrars, and other institutions will release assets to them, a process that commonly takes months and involves every legal heir’s consent.

What a will actually changes

A valid will lets you decide exactly who gets what, appoint an executor you trust to carry out your wishes, and generally moves the process along faster since a probated will is more readily accepted by banks and registrars than intestate succession documentation. It does not, by itself, reduce or avoid any tax, since India does not currently levy inheritance tax regardless of whether a will exists.

Nomination is not the same as inheritance

A common and costly misunderstanding: naming someone as a nominee on a bank account, mutual fund, insurance policy, or demat account does not make them the legal owner of that asset after your death. A nominee is only a trustee who holds the asset temporarily, with a legal obligation to distribute it to the actual legal heirs as determined by your will or by succession law. Many families assume the nominee simply keeps the asset, which is not correct and can lead to disputes later.

Where NRIs and cross-border families face extra complexity

• Assets in more than one country often need separate wills, or at minimum separate probate processes, in each jurisdiction where you hold property, since an Indian will is not automatically recognised abroad and vice versa
• Some countries do levy estate or inheritance tax on their residents or on assets located there, even though India does not. If you or your heirs have any connection to such a jurisdiction, this needs checking separately, it is not covered by Indian law at all
• NRI bank accounts and Indian property should be explicitly addressed in your will if you want a smooth transfer, since the repatriation rules and TDS treatment that apply when heirs eventually deal with these assets depend on the residential status of the heir, not the deceased

Points worth acting on early

1. Keep your nominations updated on every account and policy, and make sure they align with what your will actually says, since a mismatch is a frequent source of family disputes
2. If you hold assets in more than one country, get country-specific advice for each, rather than assuming your Indian will covers everything
3. Review your will after any major life change, marriage, a new child, acquiring property abroad, or a shift in your residential status, since these often change what you actually want and sometimes what is legally possible