Kaagazaat

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Will for an NRI's Assets in India

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  1. About you
  2. Family and executor
  3. Who gets what
  4. Signing and witnesses

Step 1 of 4

About you

For example: Gurcharan Singh Gill

You are described asNeeded

For example: Late Sardar Mohan Singh Gill

A plain number. Digits only — no words and no units beside them.

For example: Passport No. X1234567 (Indian), PAN AAAPG1234C and Aadhaar ending 4821

Your full residential address abroadNeeded

For example: Canada

For example: Indian citizen, permanent resident of Canada

More details — you may leave these
Your address in India, if you have oneYou may leave this

Optional. The revocation clause revokes every earlier Will whether or not you list them. Listing them just removes argument. If an earlier Will was registered, give the document number, year and the office. Do NOT list a will made in another country here if you want it to survive — that goes in the next field, which is the only thing that saves it from revocation.

A long answer. Several lines are fine, and a break you make between paragraphs is the break the document keeps.

For example: Will dated 4 August 2014, registered as Document No. 2231/2014 with the Sub-Registrar, Ludhiana (East)

This Will deals only with your property in India and does not touch a will made abroad for property abroad. If you have one, describe it here (date, country, what it covers) so that no one thinks this Will replaces it. Leave blank if you have no will outside India.

A long answer. Several lines are fine, and a break you make between paragraphs is the break the document keeps.

For example: My will dated 12 March 2021 made at Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which deals only with my property in Canada.

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The draft, as it stands

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WILL OF AN NRI FOR ASSETS IN INDIA

of __________

I am at present living in __________. My citizenship and immigration status is: __________.

1. DECLARATION

1.1 I am __________ years of age. Being of full age — that is, eighteen years or more — I am competent to make a Will under section 59 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925. If the figure written into this clause is below eighteen, this document is void as a Will and no person is to act upon it.

1.2 I am of sound mind and memory, and I understand the nature of this Will, the extent of the property I am giving away by it, and the persons who have a claim upon me.

1.3 I make this Will of my own free will. No person has coerced, misled, induced or unduly influenced me, and I am not under the influence of any intoxicant or of any medication that clouds my judgment.

1.4 This Will takes effect only upon my death. Until then I remain free to deal with, sell, mortgage, gift or consume any property mentioned in it, and free to revoke or alter this Will.

1.5 This Will is written on plain paper and bears no stamp. No stamp duty is chargeable on a Will either in the State of Punjab or in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, and its want of stamp is not a defect.

1.6 I make this Will to deal only with my property in India, as described in clause 2. I am signing it outside India, at the place named above, and I understand that the law of the country where I sign, and the law of any country where I own property, may have its own requirements that this Will does not address.

2. WHAT THIS WILL COVERS, AND EARLIER WILLS

2.1 This Will covers only my property situated in India, and my bank accounts, deposits, investments and other assets held with institutions in India (together, my "Indian Property"), including accounts held as an NRE or NRO account and securities held in a demat account or folio in India. It does not dispose of any property I own outside India.

2.2 I revoke all earlier Wills, codicils and other testamentary writings made by me, so far as they deal with my Indian Property. This is my last Will for my Indian Property.

2.4 A warning I have read before signing. If I own property outside India, I should have a will for it made where that property lies, and I should ask a lawyer there whether this Will and that will fit together. If I have no such will, my property outside India is not dealt with by this Will.

3. MY FAMILY

3.2 I have considered the position of each of them in making this Will.

4. EXECUTOR

4.2 My Executor shall obtain probate or letters of administration where the law requires it or where my Executor considers it prudent, shall collect and take charge of my estate, shall pay what is payable under clause 5, and shall distribute the rest in accordance with this Will. Clause 9.4 records my understanding of when a grant is and is not needed.

4.3 My Executor shall not be required to furnish security. My Executor may reimburse reasonable out-of-pocket expenses from my estate but shall take no remuneration for acting, unless a court directs otherwise.

4.4 For the purpose of paying what is payable under clause 5 and of distributing my estate, my Executor may sell, call in and convert into money the whole or any part of my estate, and may give good receipts and discharges for it. This power is subject to clause 8.2, and to section 307(2) of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 where that sub-section applies.

4.5 I have chosen an Executor who lives in India, so that my Indian Property can be looked after there. If my Executor needs the help of a lawyer, chartered accountant or other adviser in India to deal with banks, depositories or authorities, my Executor may engage one and pay the reasonable fee from my estate.

5. DEBTS, EXPENSES AND TAXES

5.1 Before any distribution, my Executor shall pay out of my estate my lawful debts, my funeral and last-illness expenses, the costs of administering my estate and of obtaining any grant, and any tax lawfully payable in respect of my estate.

5.2 If any property given by this Will is subject to a mortgage, charge, hypothecation or unpaid loan at the date of my death, the person taking that property takes it subject to that liability, unless the gift itself provides otherwise.

5.3 Arrears of ground rent, misuse or non-construction charges, property tax, water and electricity dues and any other sum recoverable as arrears of land revenue in respect of any property given by this Will shall be discharged by my Executor out of my estate before that property is distributed, so far as my estate permits.

5.4 Any tax payment, filing, certificate, declaration or approval that Indian law or a bank requires before money held in India can be paid to a beneficiary living outside India, or moved out of India, is to be dealt with by my Executor as the bank or authority requires. I have not relied on any particular rule, limit or form in making this Will, and no gift in it depends on one.

6. RESIDUARY ESTATE

6.2 If no share is stated in clause 6.1 for a person named there, the persons named there take my residuary estate in equal shares.

6.3 If shares are stated in clause 6.1 but do not together exhaust my residuary estate, or together exceed it, my residuary estate is to be divided between the persons named in clause 6.1 in the proportions which the shares stated for them bear to one another — so that the whole of my residuary estate, and no more than the whole of it, is disposed of by this clause. No part of my residuary estate is to pass as on an intestacy merely because the shares I have written do not add up.

7. A BENEFICIARY MUST SURVIVE ME

7.1 A person takes under this Will only if that person survives me by thirty days.

7.2 If a person who does not survive me is my child or other lineal descendant and leaves a lineal descendant who survives me by thirty days, the gift to that person does not fail: it takes effect in favour of that person's lineal descendants, who take equally between them the share their parent would have taken.

7.3 If a share of my residuary estate fails and no substitute is provided by this Will for that share, that share passes to the other persons named in clause 6.1 in proportion to their shares.

8. IF A BENEFICIARY IS A MINOR

8.1 If a person entitled under this Will is below eighteen years of age at my death, my Executor shall hold that person's share in trust, keep it invested in secure investments, apply the income and so much of the capital as my Executor considers necessary for that person's maintenance, education and medical care, and hand over the balance on that person attaining eighteen years. A share held by my Executor under this clause does not pass into the hands of any guardian appointed by this Will, and the guardian's authority over a child's property does not extend to it.

8.2 My Executor shall not sell, mortgage, exchange or otherwise transfer any immovable property forming part of a minor's share without the leave of the competent court; and where such property is in the hands of a guardian to whom section 8 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 applies, that section requires the same permission and a transfer made without it is voidable at the instance of the minor.

9. WHAT THIS WILL DOES AND DOES NOT DISPOSE OF

9.1 By this Will I give only such property as I am entitled in law to dispose of by Will. Nothing in this Will affects the share or interest of any other person in property held jointly, in coparcenary or in common with me.

9.2 Where I hold an interest in Hindu undivided family or coparcenary property, this Will disposes of my own undivided interest in that property and of nothing more. The interests of the other coparceners — including daughters, who are coparceners by birth under section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 as amended in 2005 — are unaffected by this Will.

9.3 This Will transfers nothing during my lifetime. It is not a gift, a settlement, a partition, a release or a family arrangement, and it is not to be read as one. Nothing in it is chargeable with ad valorem stamp duty.

9.4 Whether a grant of probate or letters of administration is needed before my Executor or a beneficiary can establish a right under this Will depends on the law that applies to my religion and to the property concerned. I have not assumed either answer. My Executor shall take advice in India on the point, and may apply to the proper court for a grant if a bank, depository, registrar or authority declines to act on this Will without one.

9.5 This Will deals with my Indian Property only. It does not decide any question of tax, inheritance or other law in the country where I live or in any other country, and it is for my Executor and my family to take advice on those laws separately.

10. GENERAL

10.1 If any provision of this Will is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full effect.

10.2 A gift in this Will to a person who attests it as a witness, or to the spouse of such a person, is void under section 67 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, although the Will itself and the attestation remain valid. I have therefore chosen as witnesses two persons who take no benefit under this Will and who are not married to any person who does. Before signing, I have read back the names in every gift clause above against the two names in the attestation block below, and they do not overlap.

10.3 I shall sign each page of this Will. No interlineation, erasure or alteration is to be given effect unless it was made before execution and initialled at the time of execution by me and by both witnesses, in the spaces provided for that purpose below.

10.4 This Will does not depend on registration to be valid. If I, or my Executor after my death, decide to register this Will or deposit it with a registering authority in India, that is to be done as that authority requires.

10.5 This Will is made under, and is to be read in accordance with, the law of India.

11. EXECUTION

 

___________________________

__________ — Testator

(to sign, or to affix a thumb impression, on each page)

If the Testator does not sign but executes by a thumb impression or other mark, strike out the word "Signature" wherever it appears against the Testator, write instead "Left thumb impression of the Testator" or "Right thumb impression of the Testator" as the case may be, say in the attestation below that the impression was affixed in the presence of both witnesses, and identify which thumb. If another person signs the Testator's name in the Testator's presence and by the Testator's direction, as section 63(a) of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 permits, that person's name and address must be written here and the attestation below must say that the signature was made in the Testator's presence and by the Testator's direction. A Will executed by mark or by a directed signature is as good as one signed by hand, but only if the attestation records how it was executed.

IMPORTANT — READ THIS BEFORE SIGNING AS A WITNESS

Under section 67 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, any gift in this Will to a person who attests it, or to that person's husband or wife, is VOID. The Will remains valid; the gift is destroyed. Do not sign below if you, or your spouse, take anything under this Will. Read the gift clauses above and look for your own name and your spouse's name before you sign. An Executor who takes no benefit under the Will may sign as a witness.

ATTESTATION BY WITNESSES (section 63, Indian Succession Act, 1925)

We, the undersigned, state that:

(a) the Testator signed this Will, or affixed a mark to it, in our presence, both of us being present at the same time;

(b) the Testator did so freely, and appeared to us to understand the nature and effect of what was being signed;

(c) each of us has signed his or her name below in the presence of the Testator and in the presence of the other;

(d) neither of us takes any benefit under this Will, and neither of us is the spouse of a person who takes any benefit under this Will; and

(e) every interlineation, erasure or alteration in this Will, if any, was made before execution and has been initialled by the Testator and by each of us in the space provided below.

Witness 1

Initials, against each page and against any alteration: ___________________________

Witness 2

Initials, against each page and against any alteration: ___________________________

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