Succession and legal heirship in India
Who inherits is decided by law; which document proves it is decided by the asset. Both questions answered here — with the Class I heirs drawn as a tree, and the shares worked out.
Free · No signup · Nothing to pay
Which document do you actually need?
The single most useful minute you can spend. Answer for each asset separately — one estate very often needs three different documents and a family that treats it as one problem waits three times as long.
Did the deceased leave a will?
- Yes, and it deals with this asset
Where was the will made, and where is the immovable property?
Section 213(2) confines the probate requirement to the classes of will described in Section 57.
- The historic Bengal territories, or the original civil jurisdiction of the Madras or Bombay High Court — or property there
Probate, or letters of administration with the will annexed.
No right as executor or legatee can be established in a court of justice without it. Which of the two you apply for depends on whether the will names an executor able to act.
Probate — and when it is not required → - Anywhere else
No probate required. The will operates as it stands.
Taking probate anyway is a commercial decision, and often a sound one where the shares are unequal, someone has been cut out, property is to be sold, or the attesting witnesses are elderly.
When probate is worth taking anyway →
- The historic Bengal territories, or the original civil jurisdiction of the Madras or Bombay High Court — or property there
- No will — or the will does not deal with this asset
What kind of asset is it?
- Pension, provident fund, gratuity, unpaid salary, mutation of records
A legal heir, surviving member or family member certificate.
From the Tahsildar, Mandal Revenue Officer, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Circle Officer or Block Development Officer — the designation depends on your State. No court, no court fee.
The legal heir certificate → - A bank balance, deposit, shares, bonds, or money owed to the deceased
Is there a registered nominee?
- Yes
Usually nothing is needed to get it out.
The institution pays the nominee and is discharged. Whether the nominee keeps it is a separate question — and for life insurance where the nominee is a parent, spouse or child, they do.
Nominee against legal heir → - No, and the institution will not settle on an indemnity
A succession certificate from the District Judge.
Ask the institution in writing what it will accept first — its own threshold is frequently higher than families assume, and the court fee is a percentage of the value.
Succession certificate — court, petition and fee →
- Yes
- A house, a flat or land
What do the heirs want to do with it?
- Hold it jointly
Heirship certificate, then mutation. Nothing more.
Mutation records who is liable for the property tax. It is necessary, and it is not title.
The certificate, and the mutation that follows → - Divide it, or one heir is to take it and pay the others
A registered partition deed, or registered release deeds.
An unregistered family settlement is evidence of what was agreed and will not satisfy a buyer’s advocate. Where the family will not agree, the route is a partition suit.
Partition — and the settlements that beat filing →
- Hold it jointly
- Nobody agrees who the heirs even are
A civil suit. No certificate can settle this.
A revenue officer conducts a summary enquiry and cannot decide a contested question of heirship; a District Judge deciding a succession certificate petition also decides summarily, and may grant to whoever has prima facie the best title without deciding ownership at all.
- Pension, provident fund, gratuity, unpaid salary, mutation of records
- Nobody has died — I am planning ahead
Write a will, fix your nominations, and leave a list.
No stamp paper, no notary, no registration. Two witnesses who take nothing under it, an executor and an alternate, and a residuary clause. It is the one step that prevents everything else on this page.
A full sample will, clause by clause →
Nothing here can begin until the death is registered. If that is outstanding, start there — a registration more than a year late needs a Magistrate’s order, and that is a timeline of its own.
A single surviving Class I heir excludes the whole of Class II — including the father.
Section 9 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 provides that among the heirs specified in the Schedule, those in Class I take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all other heirs; those in the first entry in Class II are preferred to those in the second, and so on in succession. The mother is a Class I heir; the father is the first entry in Class II. So where a man dies intestate leaving a widow and both parents, the widow and the mother take and the father takes nothing. It is a real asymmetry, it surprises families, and it is what the Schedule says.
SourceHindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 9(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 8(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — the Schedule(opens in a new tab)
The rules of intestate succession on this page are those of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Section 2 of that Act applies it to Hindus in any form or development of the religion — including Virashaiva, Lingayat, Brahmo, Prarthana and Arya Samaj followers — and to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, as well as to anyone domiciled in India who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion. Section 2(2) provides that the Act does not apply to members of a Scheduled Tribe within the meaning of Article 366(25) of the Constitution unless the Central Government directs otherwise by notification. Muslim succession is governed by Muslim personal law, and Christian and Parsi succession by their own Parts of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 — different heirs, different shares, and in the Christian and Parsi case a different statute. Nothing on this page about who inherits, or in what share, carries over to them. The procedure pages — legal heir certificate, succession certificate, probate — apply whatever your personal law, because they are about proving who the heirs are rather than deciding it.
Settling an estate in India means answering two separate questions, and most families collide them. Who the heirs are is decided by law — for a Hindu dying without a will, by Sections 8 to 10 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 and the Schedule to it; for someone who left a will, by the will. Which document proves it is decided by which asset you are trying to move: a legal heir certificate from the revenue office for pension, provident fund, gratuity, salary dues and mutation; a succession certificate from the District Judge for debts and securities; probate where a will falls within the classes in Section 57 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925; and letters of administration where there is no will or no executor able to act. Getting the second question wrong is what wastes months. The decision tree at the top of this page answers it in under a minute.
Key takeaways
- The document you need is decided by the asset, not by the size of the estate. Pension and provident fund need a revenue certificate; shares and deposits need a court certificate; a will in the wrong geography needs probate; a house needs none of them and a registered deed instead.
- Under Section 10, the widow takes one share, and each surviving son, each surviving daughter and the mother take one share each. The mother is a Class I heir and is the person families most often leave off the list.
- Class I heirs take simultaneously and to the exclusion of everyone else — Section 9. The father is not a Class I heir; he stands first in Class II, and takes only if no Class I heir survives.
- Nomination decides who collects; the law decides who owns. The one real exception is life insurance where the nominee is a parent, spouse or child, who is beneficially entitled under Section 39(7) of the Insurance Act, 1938.
- A will costs nothing to make, needs two attesting witnesses under Section 63, and does not need stamp paper, a notary or registration. Everything else on this page exists because most people do not make one.
The five documents, compared
Read down the column that matches your situation. The row that decides most cases is the last but one — what the person holding your asset actually gets out of accepting the document.
| Point of comparison | Legal heir certificateRevenue office | Succession certificateDistrict Judge | ProbateDistrict Judge or High Court | Letters of administrationThe same court | NominationFiled with the institution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who issues it | Tahsildar, Mandal Revenue Officer, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Circle Officer or Block Development Officer. | The District Judge where the deceased ordinarily resided at death. | The District Judge or High Court. | The same court. | Nobody — it is a form the account holder files while alive. |
| Who can apply | Any surviving family member. | Anyone claiming an interest in the debts or securities. | Only the executor appointed by the will. | A universal or residuary legatee, or an heir entitled under the rules of distribution. | Not applicable. |
| What it establishes | Who survived the deceased. Nothing about shares. | Entitlement to receive the specified debts and securities. | That the will is the last valid will, and the executor’s authority. | Authority to administer the estate. | Nothing. It identifies who may be paid. |
| What it costs | A small fee fixed by the State. No court fee. | An ad valorem court fee on the value of the debts and securities — 2% under the central Act. | An ad valorem court fee on the estate — 2%, 2.5% or 3% by slab under the central Act. | The same slabs. | Nothing. |
| How long | Driven by the field verification. Where a State notified a period under a Right to Public Services Act, that is your deadline. | Driven by the statutory notice and publication, and by the court’s docket. | Administrative if uncontested; a trial if a caveat is filed. | Similar to probate. | Immediate. |
| What the person holding the asset gets | Comfort, and no indemnity — which is why banks stop accepting it above their own threshold. | A full statutory indemnity for payments made in good faith. This is what they are actually buying. | Conclusive proof of the will and the executor’s title. | The administrator’s authority to get in the estate. | A full discharge on payment to the nominee. |
| Does it decide who owns it? | No. | No. | It proves the will; the will then decides. | No. | No. |
Legal heir certificate
Revenue office
- Who issues it
- Tahsildar, Mandal Revenue Officer, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Circle Officer or Block Development Officer.
- Who can apply
- Any surviving family member.
- What it establishes
- Who survived the deceased. Nothing about shares.
- What it costs
- A small fee fixed by the State. No court fee.
- How long
- Driven by the field verification. Where a State notified a period under a Right to Public Services Act, that is your deadline.
- What the person holding the asset gets
- Comfort, and no indemnity — which is why banks stop accepting it above their own threshold.
- Does it decide who owns it?
- No.
Succession certificate
District Judge
- Who issues it
- The District Judge where the deceased ordinarily resided at death.
- Who can apply
- Anyone claiming an interest in the debts or securities.
- What it establishes
- Entitlement to receive the specified debts and securities.
- What it costs
- An ad valorem court fee on the value of the debts and securities — 2% under the central Act.
- How long
- Driven by the statutory notice and publication, and by the court’s docket.
- What the person holding the asset gets
- A full statutory indemnity for payments made in good faith. This is what they are actually buying.
- Does it decide who owns it?
- No.
Probate
District Judge or High Court
- Who issues it
- The District Judge or High Court.
- Who can apply
- Only the executor appointed by the will.
- What it establishes
- That the will is the last valid will, and the executor’s authority.
- What it costs
- An ad valorem court fee on the estate — 2%, 2.5% or 3% by slab under the central Act.
- How long
- Administrative if uncontested; a trial if a caveat is filed.
- What the person holding the asset gets
- Conclusive proof of the will and the executor’s title.
- Does it decide who owns it?
- It proves the will; the will then decides.
Letters of administration
The same court
- Who issues it
- The same court.
- Who can apply
- A universal or residuary legatee, or an heir entitled under the rules of distribution.
- What it establishes
- Authority to administer the estate.
- What it costs
- The same slabs.
- How long
- Similar to probate.
- What the person holding the asset gets
- The administrator’s authority to get in the estate.
- Does it decide who owns it?
- No.
Nomination
Filed with the institution
- Who issues it
- Nobody — it is a form the account holder files while alive.
- Who can apply
- Not applicable.
- What it establishes
- Nothing. It identifies who may be paid.
- What it costs
- Nothing.
- How long
- Immediate.
- What the person holding the asset gets
- A full discharge on payment to the nominee.
- Does it decide who owns it?
- No.
Only one column here is free and immediate, and it is the one you can act on today for your own family. Register a nominee on everything, and make the nominations agree with your will.
The Class I heirs, drawn
The Schedule to the Hindu Succession Act lists sixteen relatives in Class I, with names like “daughter of a pre-deceased son of a pre-deceased daughter”. As a paragraph it is close to unreadable; as a tree it is obvious, because each entry is simply a path down from the deceased.
- takes simultaneously, excluding everyone below
- takes only if no Class I heir survives
- takes nothing while a nearer heir survives
Start here
The deceased — a male Hindu who left no will
Generation 1 — children, and their branches
Rule 2 of Section 10 gives each surviving son and each surviving daughter one share. Rule 3 gives the heirs in the branch of each predeceased son or daughter one share between them, so a branch does not fail because its head died first.
- SonClass I
One share under Rule 2.
- Son of a predeceased sonClass I
Takes through the branch, under Rule 3 and Rule 4(i).
- Son of a predeceased son of a predeceased sonClass I
The branch runs three generations down.
- Daughter of a predeceased son of a predeceased sonClass I
On the same footing as her brother.
- Widow of a predeceased son of a predeceased sonClass I
Shares the branch portion equally with that son’s children, under Rule 4(i).
- Daughter of a predeceased sonClass I
Takes through the branch, equally with her brothers.
- Widow of a predeceased sonClass I
Rule 4(i): the widow, or widows together, and the surviving sons and daughters get equal portions of the branch share.
- Daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased sonClass I
One of the four heirs added to Class I by Act 39 of 2005, section 7, with effect from 9 September 2005.
- DaughterClass I
One share under Rule 2 — identical to a son, and unaffected by marriage.
- Son of a predeceased daughterClass I
Rule 4(ii): the surviving sons and daughters of a predeceased daughter get equal portions of the branch share.
- Daughter of a predeceased daughterClass I
On the same footing as her brother.
- Son of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughterClass I
Added to Class I by the 2005 amendment.
- Daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughterClass I
Added to Class I by the 2005 amendment.
- Daughter of a predeceased son of a predeceased daughterClass I
Added to Class I by the 2005 amendment. Note that the SON of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased son remains in Class II — the amendment did not make the two lines perfectly symmetrical.
Generation 0 — spouse and parents
The asymmetry here is real and consequential: the mother is a Class I heir and the father is not.
- WidowClass I
Rule 1 of Section 10: the widow takes one share. Where there is more than one widow, all of them together take one share — not one each.
- MotherClass I
Rule 2 names her alongside the surviving sons and daughters. She takes one share, and she is the heir families leave off most often.
- FatherClass II · entry I
Not a Class I heir. He is the first entry in Class II, and under Section 9 he takes only where no Class I heir at all survives.
Where Class II begins
Section 9: those in Class I take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all other heirs. A single surviving Class I heir excludes the whole of Class II.
- Son’s daughter’s son, son’s daughter’s daughter, brother, sisterClass II · entry II
The second entry in Class II. Those in the first entry are preferred to the second, and so on in succession.
- Daughter’s son’s son, daughter’s son’s daughter, daughter’s daughter’s son, daughter’s daughter’s daughterClass II · entry III
- Agnates, then cognatesNot an heir
Only where no heir of either class survives. Section 8(c) and (d), with the rules of preference in Section 12.
A single surviving Class I heir excludes the whole of Class II — so the practical question in most estates is only which of the people in the first two groups above are alive.
SourceHindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 8(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 9(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 10(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — the Schedule(opens in a new tab)
The Class I and Class II lists were read from India Code’s own extracted text of the Hindu Succession Act. The Explanation to the Schedule provides that references to a brother or sister do not include a brother or sister by uterine blood.
How a typical intestate estate actually divides
A male Hindu dies without a will, survived by his widow, one son, one daughter and his mother. The estate is whatever he owned — the flat, the bank balance and the shares divide in exactly the same proportions.
| Heir | Share | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Widow | 1/4 | Rule 1 of Section 10 — the widow, or all the widows together, take one share. |
| Son | 1/4 | Rule 2 — each surviving son takes one share. |
| Daughter | 1/4 | Rule 2 — each surviving daughter takes one share, identically to a son. Marriage makes no difference. |
| Mother | 1/4 | Rule 2 names the mother alongside the surviving sons and daughters. The most commonly omitted heir in India. |
| Total | 1/1 | The whole estate is accounted for. |
Four shares, not three. Families almost always forget the mother — and a legal heir certificate obtained without naming her is liable to be cancelled, reopening every transaction done on the strength of it.
SourceHindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 10(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 9(opens in a new tab)
Had the father also survived, he would take nothing: Section 9 gives Class I heirs the estate to the exclusion of all other heirs, and the father is the first entry in Class II.
And when a child has predeceased
The same man, but his daughter died in 2019 leaving a son and a daughter of her own. Rule 3 gives the heirs in her branch one share between them, and Rule 4(ii) divides it equally among her surviving sons and daughters.
| Heir | Share | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Widow | 1/4 | One share under Rule 1 — two-eighths, or one quarter. |
| Surviving son | 1/4 | One share under Rule 2. |
| Mother | 1/4 | One share under Rule 2. |
| Son of the predeceased daughter | 1/8 | Half of the branch’s single share, under Rule 3 and Rule 4(ii). |
| Daughter of the predeceased daughter | 1/8 | The other half of the branch share, in equal portions with her brother. |
| Total | 1/1 | The whole estate is accounted for. |
A branch does not fail because its head died first. Both grandchildren are Class I heirs in their own right and both must be named on any application for a legal heir certificate.
SourceHindu Succession Act, 1956 — s. 10(opens in a new tab)Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — the Schedule(opens in a new tab)
Rule 4 divides a branch share differently depending on whose branch it is: in a predeceased son’s branch, his widow shares equally with his children; in a predeceased daughter’s branch, only her surviving sons and daughters take.
From a death to a settled estate
Four stages, and the whole point of laying them out is that stages two, three and four run in parallel rather than in sequence. A family that waits for one before starting the next finishes a year later for no reason.
- Fixed by statute
- Notified by the State
- No reliable period
- 1
Register the death
The reporting period is fixed by State rules; the late-registration stages are fixed by the Act
Order several certified copies at the same time — every institution keeps the one you give it. Within thirty days it is a late fee; after thirty days and within a year it needs the District Registrar’s written permission; after a year, a Magistrate’s order under Section 13(3).
→ The death certificate — the prerequisite for absolutely everything else
How to register a death → - 2
Establish who the heirs are
Within the period your State notified, where it has one
The legal heir, surviving member or family member certificate from the revenue office, naming every survivor without exception. Simultaneously, list every asset and the nominee registered against each.
→ A document institutions recognise, and a map of the estate
The legal heir certificate → - 3
Make the claims that do not need a court
Depends on each institution
Pension, provident fund, gratuity, salary dues, anything with a valid nomination, and mutation of the land and municipal records. This is most of most estates, and none of it waits for anything.
→ Money in the family’s hands, and the records updated
What a nomination does and does not do → - 4
Go to court only for what needs a court
Driven by the statutory notice and the court’s docket
A succession certificate for debts and securities; probate where the will falls within Section 57. Start this in parallel with stage three, not after it — it is the long one.
→ Authority over the assets nothing else will release
Succession certificate →
- 1
Register the death
The reporting period is fixed by State rules; the late-registration stages are fixed by the Act
Order several certified copies at the same time — every institution keeps the one you give it. Within thirty days it is a late fee; after thirty days and within a year it needs the District Registrar’s written permission; after a year, a Magistrate’s order under Section 13(3).
→ The death certificate — the prerequisite for absolutely everything else
How to register a death → - 2
Establish who the heirs are
Within the period your State notified, where it has one
The legal heir, surviving member or family member certificate from the revenue office, naming every survivor without exception. Simultaneously, list every asset and the nominee registered against each.
→ A document institutions recognise, and a map of the estate
The legal heir certificate → - 3
Make the claims that do not need a court
Depends on each institution
Pension, provident fund, gratuity, salary dues, anything with a valid nomination, and mutation of the land and municipal records. This is most of most estates, and none of it waits for anything.
→ Money in the family’s hands, and the records updated
What a nomination does and does not do → - 4
Go to court only for what needs a court
Driven by the statutory notice and the court’s docket
A succession certificate for debts and securities; probate where the will falls within Section 57. Start this in parallel with stage three, not after it — it is the long one.
→ Authority over the assets nothing else will release
Succession certificate →
Most families need the first three stages and never the fourth — and the commonest expensive mistake is starting a court proceeding for something the third stage would have settled for nothing.
No stage carries an invented duration. Where the Act or a State fixes a period it is marked as such; where nothing reliable exists, the timeline says so.
The two questions, and why collapsing them wastes months
Almost every wasted month in an Indian estate comes from treating "who inherits?" and "what document do I need?" as one question. They are separate, they have separate answers, and the answers come from different places.
Who inherits is a question of law and it does not change with the asset. If a man dies intestate leaving a widow, two children and his mother, those four people are his Class I heirs and each takes one share — of the bank balance, of the shares, of the house, of everything. No office decides this and no certificate changes it.
What document you need is a practical question about who is holding the asset and what they need in order to safely let go of it. A pension office needs to know who the family members are. A depository needs a statutory indemnity. A buyer’s advocate needs title. Those are three different needs, and they are met by three different documents.
The consequence is that a family can and should run several tracks at once. There is no reason to hold up a pension claim while a court petition for a share portfolio is pending, and no reason to start a court petition at all for an asset a valid nomination will release tomorrow. The decision tree at the top of this page exists to sort the assets into tracks before anybody spends anything.
Register the death and order several certified copies of the certificate at the same time. Every institution keeps the copy you give it — the bank, the insurer, the provident fund office, the employer, the registrar for mutation, and the court if it comes to that. Ordering copies later means paying the search fee again and waiting again, and one office holding the only copy can stall everything else for weeks.
Who inherits when there is no will
Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 sets the order for a male Hindu dying intestate. The property devolves firstly on the heirs specified in Class I of the Schedule; secondly, if there is no Class I heir, on those in Class II; thirdly, if there is no heir of either class, on the agnates; and lastly on the cognates.
Section 9 then makes the effect of that order emphatic. Among the heirs specified in the Schedule, those in Class I take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all other heirs; those in the first entry in Class II are preferred to those in the second, and so on in succession. So a single surviving Class I heir excludes every Class II heir entirely — a point that surprises families where, for example, a father survives alongside a widow.
Section 10 does the arithmetic, in four rules. Rule 1: the intestate’s widow, or if there is more than one, all the widows together, take one share. Rule 2: the surviving sons and daughters and the mother of the intestate each take one share. Rule 3: the heirs in the branch of each predeceased son or predeceased daughter take between them one share. Rule 4 divides that branch share — among the heirs in the branch of a predeceased son, his widow, or widows together, and his surviving sons and daughters get equal portions, and the branch of his predeceased sons gets the same portion; among the heirs in the branch of a predeceased daughter, the surviving sons and daughters get equal portions.
Section 19 adds two rules that matter for what happens afterwards: where two or more heirs succeed together they take per capita and not per stirpes, and they take as tenants-in-common and not as joint tenants. Tenancy-in-common is why a co-heir can sell their own undivided share, and why dividing an inherited house needs a registered instrument or a partition suit.
A female Hindu dying intestate is governed by a different order entirely. Section 15(1) sends the property firstly to the sons and daughters, including the children of any predeceased son or daughter, and the husband; secondly to the heirs of the husband; thirdly to the mother and father; fourthly to the heirs of the father; and lastly to the heirs of the mother. Section 15(2) then carves out two cases: property inherited from her father or mother goes, in the absence of any son or daughter or their children, to the heirs of the father; and property inherited from her husband or father-in-law goes, in the same absence, to the heirs of the husband. Kerala added a third case by its 2016 amendment, for property inherited from a predeceased son.
| Heir | Share under Section 10 | Frequently missed because |
|---|---|---|
| Son | One share each, under Rule 2. | — |
| Daughter | One share each, under Rule 2 — identical to a son. | Families still assume a married daughter takes less, or nothing. She does not. |
| Widow | One share under Rule 1. Where there is more than one widow, all of them together take one share. | The rule about multiple widows sharing a single share is often applied the other way round. |
| Mother | One share, under Rule 2, alongside each son and daughter. | The single most commonly omitted heir. Families assume inheritance flows downwards; it does not. |
| Son of a predeceased son; daughter of a predeceased son; widow of a predeceased son | They take between them the one share their branch is entitled to under Rule 3, divided under Rule 4(i). | A branch does not fail because its head died first. |
| Son of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased daughter | They take the branch share under Rule 3, in equal portions under Rule 4(ii). | A daughter’s children are Class I heirs in their own right. |
| Son, daughter and widow of a predeceased son of a predeceased son | They take their branch’s portion under Rule 4(i). | The coparcenary and the Class I list both run three generations down. |
| Son of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased son of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased son | They take through the branch they belong to. | These four were added to Class I by Act 39 of 2005, section 7, with effect from 9 September 2005 — to put the descendants of daughters on the same footing as those of sons. |
The father is not on this list. He is the first entry in Class II, which means he takes only where no Class I heir at all survives. That is a real and consequential asymmetry with the mother’s position.
Which document releases which asset
This is the practical half, and the table below is the whole of it. The pattern is easier to remember than the detail: a payer who is paying a benefit because of a family relationship wants to know who the family is; a payer who is holding an asset that belonged to the deceased wants legal protection for handing it over; and a buyer wants title. Three needs, three documents.
| The asset | What you need | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Family pension | Legal heir or surviving member certificate | The benefit arises from the relationship, not from the estate. |
| Provident fund, gratuity, unpaid salary, employer’s terminal benefits | Legal heir certificate, or nothing where the scheme has a valid nomination | Paid to the family under the scheme’s own rules. |
| Mutation of land and municipal property tax records | Legal heir certificate | Mutation records who is liable for the tax. A revenue certificate is the natural input to a revenue record — and mutation is not title. |
| A bank balance where a nominee is registered | Usually nothing but the death certificate and the nominee’s identity | Section 45ZA of the Banking Regulation Act discharges the bank on payment to the nominee. Ownership is a separate question. |
| A bank balance with no nominee, below the bank’s threshold | Legal heir certificate, an indemnity bond, and a no-objection from the other heirs | The bank’s own internal limit. Ask what it is, in writing, before assuming a court is needed. |
| Shares, debentures, bonds, and deposits above the threshold | Succession certificate from the District Judge | These are debts and securities within Part X of the Indian Succession Act, and Section 381 gives the payer a full statutory indemnity that nothing else can. |
| A life insurance claim | Nothing where a nominee survives; otherwise a succession certificate for larger sums | Section 39(5) of the Insurance Act names the succession certificate in terms where no nominee survives. |
| A house or a flat, to be retained by the family | Legal heir certificate, then mutation | And a registered partition or release deed if the heirs intend to divide rather than hold jointly. |
| A house or a flat, to be sold | All of the above, plus registered release deeds from every heir who is not selling | A buyer’s advocate is checking title, and a family list is not title. |
| Anything at all where there is a will within Section 57 | Probate, or letters of administration with the will annexed | Section 213 bars establishing a right as executor or legatee without it, in the cases sub-section (2) describes. |
| Anything where the family is genuinely in dispute about who the heirs are | A civil suit | A revenue officer conducts a summary enquiry and cannot decide a contested question of heirship. Refusing is the correct response, not an obstruction. |
The order to do things in
Sequence matters more than speed here, because several of these steps depend on earlier ones and a family that starts in the wrong place waits twice.
- 1Register the death and take several certified copies. Nothing else can begin. Where more than a year has passed, Section 13(3) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 requires the order of a District Magistrate, Sub-Divisional Magistrate or authorised Executive Magistrate, and that is its own timeline.
- 2Find out whether there is a will. Ask the family, the advocate who may have drafted it, and the Sub-Registrar if there is any chance it was registered. A will changes almost every answer below.
- 3List every asset and, against each, the registered nominee. Most people cannot do this from memory. The income tax return and Form 26AS, the annual information statement, bank statements, insurance premium receipts, the demat holding statement and the society’s share register are where the list comes from.
- 4Sort the assets into tracks: released by nomination alone; released by the legal heir certificate; needing a court certificate; needing probate; and immovable property.
- 5Apply for the legal heir, surviving member or family member certificate, naming every survivor without exception.
- 6Run the tracks in parallel. Lodge the pension, provident fund and employer claims; apply for mutation; start the court petition for the securities. None of these waits for the others.
- 7Only then divide. If the heirs want to hold jointly, nothing more is needed. If they want to divide, that needs a registered partition deed, or registered release deeds from those giving up a share.
- 8Write your own will while all this is fresh. It is the one step that prevents the whole sequence for the next generation, and it takes an afternoon.
An ordering of the five against one another, from how these matters present. It is not a measurement — no dataset of Indian estate administration exists that would support one, and none is claimed here. The first entry is also the one a single afternoon during your lifetime prevents entirely.
What changes if the family is not governed by the Hindu Succession Act
This needs stating clearly, because a page about intestate succession in India that does not is misleading by omission.
The rules of who inherits, and in what share, set out above are the rules of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Section 2 applies that Act to Hindus in any form of the religion, and to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, as well as to anyone domiciled in India who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion — subject to the Scheduled Tribe exclusion in Section 2(2).
Muslim succession is governed by Muslim personal law. The heirs are different, the shares are different, and there is a limit on testamentary disposition — generally a testator can dispose of only one-third of the estate by will without the consent of the heirs — that has no counterpart in Hindu law.
Christian and Parsi succession is governed by the Indian Succession Act, 1925 itself, in its own Parts, with their own rules about the shares of a widow, children and other kindred. Section 213(2) also treats them differently for probate: the section does not apply to wills made by Muslims or, in terms, to Indian Christians.
Goa is different again, applying the Portuguese Civil Code as its civil law of succession, including a community-property regime between spouses.
What does carry across every personal law is the procedural half of this page. A legal heir certificate, a succession certificate, probate and letters of administration are documents that prove who the heirs are and authorise dealings with assets. They apply whatever your personal law, because they are about proving heirship rather than deciding it.
The half-day that prevents all of this
Everything above exists because most people die without having done three things that take an afternoon between them.
Write a will. It needs no stamp paper, no notary and no registration. Two witnesses who take nothing under it, an executor and an alternate, a clear description of each asset, and a residuary clause. Section 30 of the Hindu Succession Act confirms that any Hindu may dispose by will of any property capable of being so disposed of.
Register a nominee on everything, and keep the nominations current. An asset with no nominee is an asset your family will spend months prising loose, sometimes with an ad valorem court fee. Review them after every marriage, birth, divorce and death in the family — and make them agree with the will, so the person who collects is the person entitled to keep.
Leave a list. One sheet, updated once a year, kept with the will: every account, policy, folio, deposit and property, with the institution, the number and the nominee against each. It has no legal effect whatever, and it is the single most useful document you can leave, because the hardest part of administering an estate is finding out what is in it.
A will nobody can find does not work, and a bank locker is the classic hiding place — the bank frequently wants to see the will before opening the locker the will is inside. Tell your executor where the original is, and tell the family that a will exists. Almost every contested probate begins with a citation arriving at a house where nothing had been said.
Worked examples
Example 1: A widow, two children and a surviving mother: the arithmetic
- Deceased
- A male Hindu, died intestate
- Survivors
- Widow, one son, one daughter, and his mother
- Estate
- A flat, a bank balance and a small share holding
- Assumption the family made
- That the estate divides into three
- 1.Section 8 sends the property to the Class I heirs. The widow, the son, the daughter and the mother are all Class I heirs under the Schedule.
- 2.Section 9 means they take simultaneously and to the exclusion of everyone else — so no Class II heir, including the father if he had survived, takes anything.
- 3.Section 10, Rule 1: the widow takes one share. Rule 2: the surviving son, the surviving daughter and the mother take one share each.
- 4.That is four shares, not three. Each of the four takes one quarter of the whole estate — the flat, the bank balance and the shares alike.
- 5.The daughter takes exactly what the son takes. Marriage makes no difference to it.
- 6.Leaving the mother off the legal heir certificate, which is what the family was about to do, would have produced a certificate liable to cancellation and a mutation entry that would have been reopened.
One quarter each to the widow, the son, the daughter and the mother. The mother is the heir families omit most often, and the omission is the commonest reason a certificate is later cancelled.
Example 2: Sorting one estate into four tracks on day one
- Estate
- A flat, ₹4,00,000 in a bank account, ₹18,00,000 in listed shares, a life policy, and a provident fund balance
- Nominations
- Wife nominated on the bank account and the life policy; nothing on the demat account
- Will
- None
- Family
- Widow, two adult children, mother deceased
- 1.Track one — nothing needed. The bank account pays the nominee and the bank is discharged under Section 45ZA. The life policy is payable to the wife, and because she is the policyholder’s spouse she is beneficially entitled under Section 39(7) of the Insurance Act, so it does not enter the estate at all.
- 2.Track two — the legal heir certificate. Apply naming the widow and the two children. This releases the provident fund and supports the mutation of the flat.
- 3.Track three — the succession certificate. The ₹18,00,000 share holding has no nominee and is a "security" within Section 370(2). Petition the District Judge under Section 371, valuing the securities as at the date of the application, with the ad valorem court fee under the Court-fees Act in force in that State.
- 4.Track four — the flat. The certificate and a mutation application put the heirs on the record. If they intend to divide rather than hold jointly, that needs a registered partition or release deed, which is a separate step and not a court proceeding.
- 5.All four tracks start in the same week. The court petition is the long one, and there is no reason for anything else to wait for it.
The bank account, the policy and the provident fund settle quickly; the shares take as long as the court takes; and the flat is dealt with in parallel. A family that had run these in sequence would have finished a year later for no reason.
Example 3: The branch that did not fail
- Deceased
- A male Hindu, died intestate in 2026
- Survivors
- Widow, one surviving son
- Predeceased
- A daughter, who died in 2019 leaving a son and a daughter
- Also surviving
- The deceased’s mother
- 1.Rule 1 of Section 10: the widow takes one share.
- 2.Rule 2: the surviving son takes one share, and the mother takes one share.
- 3.Rule 3: the heirs in the branch of the predeceased daughter take between them one share. The branch does not fail because its head died first.
- 4.That is four shares in all — widow, son, mother, and the predeceased daughter’s branch. Each is one quarter.
- 5.Rule 4(ii) divides the branch share: among the heirs in the branch of a predeceased daughter, the surviving sons and daughters get equal portions. So her son and her daughter take one-eighth of the whole estate each.
- 6.Both grandchildren are Class I heirs in their own right under the Schedule, and both must be named on any application for a legal heir certificate.
Widow one quarter, son one quarter, mother one quarter, and the two grandchildren one-eighth each. Families frequently assume a predeceased child’s children take nothing; Rule 3 says the opposite.
More questions about this page
Who inherits when someone dies without a will in India?▼
Is the mother a legal heir?▼
Do daughters get an equal share?▼
What is the difference between a legal heir certificate and a succession certificate?▼
Do I need probate for a will in India?▼
Does the nominee get to keep the money?▼
How do I transfer a house after the owner dies?▼
Can heirs simply divide the property among themselves?▼
What if the family cannot agree on who the heirs are?▼
What is the single most useful thing I can do for my own family?▼
Official sources checked
The statutes, rules and regulator pages the statements on this page were checked against.
- Every section read from India Code’s text of the bare Act. The Class I and Class II lists were read from India Code’s own extracted text of the whole Act, which carries the footnote recording that four Class I heirs were added by Act 39 of 2005, section 7, with effect from 9 September 2005.
- Probate, letters of administration and the whole of Part X on succession certificates.
- The certificate the whole of this cluster depends on, and the consequences of registering a death late.
- The three nomination provisions, and the beneficial nominee rule that is the one real exception.
Every page in this guide
You are here
Working out what your family actually needs
What to do next
- 1
If someone has died and the death is not yet registered, start there
Nothing in this cluster can begin without the certificate, and a registration more than a year late needs a Magistrate’s order.
Registering a death, including a late one → - 2
Establish who the heirs are, in a document institutions accept
It is the document that unlocks pension, provident fund, gratuity, salary dues and mutation — most of most estates.
The legal heir certificate → - 3
Find out what your State calls it, and where to apply
Searching a portal for the wrong words is the single commonest way people are defeated by this process.
The State-by-State directory → - 4
Then prevent all of it for the next generation
A will, current nominations and a one-sheet asset list. An afternoon, and it removes the largest source of delay in settling any estate.
Will format and the free generator →