ESTATE
Do I need a will if I'm unmarried and have no children?
A nomination is not a will. Most Indian women have filled in the first and never written the second, and the two do entirely different jobs.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Yes. Without a will, your assets are distributed by succession law rather than by your wishes, and the people you actually want to provide for may not be on that list. A nominee is only a custodian who receives the asset and holds it for the legal heirs. A will is what decides who it eventually belongs to.
The distinction almost nobody is told
When you name a nominee on a bank account, an insurance policy or a mutual fund folio, you are telling the institution who to hand the asset to. You are not deciding who owns it. Indian courts have been consistent on this. The nominee receives and holds; the legal heirs inherit.
So a woman who has carefully nominated her sister on every account, assuming that settles it, may find the assets pass by succession law to people she never intended, while her sister is left holding them as a trustee with no claim of her own.
What happens without a will
Succession law applies, and which law applies depends on your religion. For an unmarried Hindu woman who dies without a will, the property generally passes to her parents, and after them to her father's heirs. A partner she lived with for fifteen years, a friend who cared for her, a charity she supported for decades, none of them appear anywhere in that sequence.
If you would want any of those people or causes provided for, a will is the only instrument that does it.
What a will actually requires in India
Less than people assume. It must be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by two people who are not beneficiaries under it. Registration is optional and stamp paper is not required. A clearly written will on plain paper is valid.
What it should contain: a list of what you own with enough detail to identify each item, who receives what, an executor to carry it out, and a date. A newer will supersedes an older one, so the date matters.
For anything complicated, a property with disputed title, a business, beneficiaries abroad, a professional is worth the fee. For a straightforward estate, a plain document done this month is far better than a perfect one done never.
The list that matters as much as the will
Write down every account, policy, folio, locker and property you hold, and tell one trusted person where that list lives. Unclaimed financial assets accumulate in India in substantial amounts, largely because families never knew the accounts existed.
A will that nobody can act on because nobody knows what you owned solves only half the problem.
Succession law varies by personal law and by circumstance. This is general information and not legal advice.
ONE MOVE THIS WEEK
Write the asset list this week. One page, every account and policy. The will can follow; the list is the part your family will actually need.
