What a will actually changes for your heirs
Without a valid will, your assets pass by the rules of intestate succession — for a Hindu, under the Hindu Succession Act, and under the corresponding personal law for others. Those rules decide who gets what in fixed shares, regardless of what you might have wanted, and your heirs typically have to establish their entitlement through a succession certificate or a similar court process before institutions release anything.
A will changes two things. It lets you decide who receives which asset rather than leaving it to a statutory formula, and it gives your heirs a clear instrument to act on, which can shorten the path to getting the bank, registrar or sub-registrar to transfer the asset. It does not make the process instant — but it removes the guesswork about your intentions, which is often the slowest part of an intestate estate.
One thing a will does not do in India is save tax on the inheritance, because there is no inheritance or estate tax to save. The case for a will here is purely about control and ease of transfer for the people you leave behind.
Why a foreign will alone is awkward for Indian assets
A will validly made abroad can, in principle, deal with assets anywhere in the world, including in India. The problem is operational, not theoretical. When your heirs present a foreign will to an Indian bank or a sub-registrar, the institution generally cannot act on it on face value — a foreign will usually has to be recognised through an Indian court before it carries weight here, which means another set of proceedings, in another country, for heirs who are themselves abroad.
A will that deals specifically with your Indian assets sidesteps much of that friction. It is read in the system it was written for, by institutions familiar with the form, and it can be administered without first persuading an Indian court to recognise a document drawn up under foreign law.
| Approach | What heirs in India face |
|---|---|
| Foreign will only | Often needs Indian court recognition first |
| India-specific will / clause | Administered directly in India |
The two wills must not fight each other. The standard care is to make sure the India will is confined to Indian assets and that the foreign will either excludes those assets or is consistent with the India will — so that nothing is accidentally revoked or double-disposed. That coordination is exactly where a will goes wrong if it is done piecemeal.
A worked example: a couple in Singapore with a Mumbai flat
Neha and her husband live in Singapore and have made wills there covering their Singapore home and savings. They also own a flat in Mumbai and hold fixed deposits and a small share portfolio in India. Their Singapore wills mention "all assets worldwide", so they assumed India was handled.
When they looked closer with a CA and an Indian lawyer, the picture was less comfortable. If either of them died, the survivor or their children would have to get the Singapore will recognised by an Indian court before a Mumbai bank or the sub-registrar would transfer the flat or release the deposits — a parallel proceeding in a country none of them lived in. They chose instead to make a short India-specific will dealing only with the Indian flat, deposits and shares, drafted by an Indian advocate, and had their Singapore wills adjusted so the two were consistent and did not overlap. The CA's part was on the asset and tax side: pinning down what was held in India and in whose name, confirming there was no inheritance tax to worry about, and noting the cost history of the flat so that whoever inherits it has the figures for a future capital-gains computation. The drafting itself stayed with the lawyer.
Why a separate Indian will speeds things up for your heirs
A single foreign will can, in law, cover your Indian assets too. The catch is what your heirs have to do with it. A foreign will usually cannot be acted on in India at face value — the foreign grant has to be re-established here through an Indian court before a bank, registrar or sub-registrar will transfer anything. That is a second proceeding, layered on top of whatever your heirs are already doing in your country of residence, and it adds months.
A will written for your Indian assets removes that step. It is drawn under Indian law, in the form Indian institutions expect, so the transmission of the flat, the deposits and the shares can run on its own footing without first waiting on a foreign court.
| Heirs act on… | What it means in practice | |
|---|---|---|
| One foreign will | Re-established in India | Wait on a foreign grant first |
| Separate Indian will | Indian will directly | Indian assets move on their own |
The two wills have to be coordinated so neither cancels the other — that is the next section. But the headline reason an NRI makes a separate Indian will is speed: the Indian estate is freed up without your family chasing recognition of a document drawn up abroad.
Do you actually need probate in India?
Probate is a court's certificate that the will is genuine and is the document to act on. For a long time it was compulsory for certain wills — broadly, wills of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis relating to immovable property in the former presidency towns of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, under the old Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act.
That compulsion is gone. The Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 removed Section 213 (notified December 2025), so for deaths from FY2026-27 onward probate is no longer mandatory anywhere in India — heirs can establish their rights under a will without first obtaining it, even for property in those three cities.
| Position | Probate of a will |
|---|---|
| Until end-2025 | Mandatory in Mumbai / Kolkata / Chennai |
| FY2026-27 onward | Not mandatory anywhere |
It is not the whole story, though. Banks, housing societies and registrars can still ask for probate as their own safeguard, and where a will is large or might be contested, obtaining probate voluntarily is often the safer route because the court has tested its validity. So the plain answer is: you are no longer compelled to probate, but it may still be sought — and that is worth settling while the will is being drafted, not after a death.
Making the will hard to challenge later
A will is only as good as its execution. To be valid the testator must sign it, and two witnesses must each see the signing and then sign themselves (Section 63, Indian Succession Act). A witness should not be someone who benefits under the will — using a neutral witness avoids an obvious line of attack later.
Registration is optional, not required, for a will to be valid. But registering it at the sub-registrar's office is usually worth doing: it fixes the date and authorship and makes the will much harder to dispute as a forgery or a later substitution. For an NRI whose heirs may have to defend the will from abroad, that extra weight is useful.
Two more habits keep a will solid. Keep it current — revisit it after a marriage, a birth, a new property or a sale, because a will that no longer matches what you own invites argument. And for an older or unwell testator, it is sensible to have a doctor confirm sound mind around the time of signing, so that capacity cannot later be questioned. None of this is the CA's job to draft — execution is the lawyer's — but these are the details that decide whether a will holds up.
Running an Indian will and a foreign will together
Most NRIs end up with two wills — one for assets where they live, one for India. That is fine, and usually better than one will stretched across both systems. The danger is a single careless line.
A standard will often opens by revoking "all earlier wills". If your Indian will says that, it can wipe out your foreign will; if your later foreign will says it, it can wipe out your Indian one. The fix is to draft each so it revokes only earlier wills dealing with the same assets, and to state plainly that it does not touch the other will. Each will should also be confined to its own estate — the Indian will to Indian assets, the foreign will to the rest — so nothing is left to both.
Done this way, the executor named in each country can act on their own will without waiting on the other. Your Indian executor administers the Indian estate while your foreign executor handles the rest, in parallel rather than in sequence. The drafting and the revocation wording sit with your lawyers on each side; our part is the asset inventory underneath, so each will is built on an accurate split of what is held where.