Will & Succession Planning

A valid Will in India must satisfy the execution formalities in Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925: it must be signed (or marked) by the testator, or by some other person in the testator's presence and by their direction, and that signature must be attested by two or more witnesses, each of whom has seen the testator sign (or has received a personal acknowledgment of the signature) and signs the Will in the testator's presence. A Will that fails this attestation standard is liable to be challenged and set aside in probate proceedings.

Probate — the court process validating a Will's execution — is not mandatory for every Will in India. Under Section 213(2) of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, the requirement to obtain probate before an executor can establish rights under a Will is limited to Wills made by specified communities and to Wills that are made within the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of the presidency towns of Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, or that relate to immovable property situated in those towns — outside these categories, probate is optional (though often still advisable for clean title transfer).

Where a person dies intestate (without a Will), the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 governs Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh estates: Section 8 fixes Class I heirs' entitlements, and Section 6 (as amended in 2005, and applied retroactively per the Supreme Court's 2020 ruling in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma) gives daughters equal coparcenary rights in ancestral property alongside sons.

Since gift-tax was abolished by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1998 and estate duty by the Estate Duty (Abolition) Act, 1985, a testamentary transfer today carries no separate wealth-transfer tax — the only tax event for the estate/beneficiary is typically Section 56(2)(x) income-tax treatment on receipt where an exemption does not apply.

Our engagement covers Will drafting to Section 63 execution standards, probate-necessity assessment under Section 213(2), and intestate-succession advisory where no Will exists.

Will and succession planning is the structuring of how an individual's assets will pass on — the will drafted under the Indian Succession Act 1925, the nominations on the accounts and the policies, the trusts where the structure is needed, and the succession plan that coordinates the assets, the family and the law. The planning is the discipline of the family's succession, and its gaps are the disputes and the costs the heirs inherit.

The succession plan is the coordination of the estate's parts — the will that names the executors and the beneficiaries, the nominations that let the accounts and the policies pass without the delay, the trusts that hold the assets for the minors and the future generations, and the understanding of the personal law that governs the succession. The plan is reviewed as the family and the assets change, and its value is the family's path to the assets when the time comes.

The cost of an unplanned succession is the estate that passes wrong: the intestacy that ignores the wishes, the assets stuck in the probate and the succession, the nominations that contradict the will, the minors without the provision.

This service is for individuals and families planning their succession. We map the assets and the family, draft the will under the Indian Succession Act 1925, structure the nominations and the trusts, plan the succession under the personal law, and review the plan as the circumstances change — so the family's path to the estate is the planned one.