Cross-Border Succession Conflicts of Law: Where NRIs and PIOs Get Caught Between Systems

The Problem in Outline

When an individual with assets, family, and legal ties spanning more than one country dies, more than one country's succession law can plausibly claim to govern the estate. Indian private international law resolves much of this through a relatively settled, if not always intuitive, framework - but the framework produces genuinely difficult results for the growing population of NRIs, PIOs, and Indian-origin individuals holding assets across jurisdictions, particularly where those jurisdictions apply fundamentally different succession philosophies.

India's Basic Conflict-of-Laws Rule: Split by Asset Type

Indian private international law, reflected in the Indian Succession Act, 1925 and general conflict-of-laws principles applied by Indian courts, generally follows a split approach:

• Movable property (bank accounts, shares, mutual funds, most personal property) is governed by the law of the deceased's domicile at the time of death - not their nationality, and not necessarily where the specific asset is physically located.

• Immovable property (land and buildings) is governed by the lex situs - the law of the country where the property is actually situated - regardless of the deceased's domicile.

This split, while a well-established conflict-of-laws principle globally, means a single deceased person's estate can genuinely be governed by two different succession regimes simultaneously: Indian succession law (say, the Indian Succession Act or a personal law) for a flat in Mumbai, and the succession law of their country of domicile for a UK or Singapore bank account - even where a single will purports to dispose of the whole estate.

Where This Produces Genuine Difficulty

Forced heirship jurisdictions vs Indian testamentary freedom. Several civil-law jurisdictions (much of continental Europe, and numerous jurisdictions in the Middle East applying Islamic law principles to succession) impose forced heirship - a mandatory minimum share of the estate reserved for specified heirs (typically children and spouse), which a will cannot override. India, by contrast, generally permits far greater testamentary freedom (subject to the coparcenary constraints under Hindu law for joint family property, and to Muslim personal law's own bequeathable-third limitation). An NRI domiciled in a forced-heirship jurisdiction who executes an Indian will attempting to leave their movable estate entirely to one child, disinheriting others, may find that will only partially effective - Indian courts, applying the domicile's forced heirship rules to movable property, may need to give effect to the mandatory reserved shares the domicile jurisdiction requires, notwithstanding the will's contrary instructions.

Determining domicile is itself contested. "Domicile" under conflict-of-laws principles is a distinct, technical concept from residency or citizenship - it turns on the country a person treats as their permanent home, with the intention to remain indefinitely (domicile of choice), or the domicile they were born into and have not affirmatively abandoned (domicile of origin). An NRI who has lived and worked abroad for decades, but maintains strong ties to India (property, family, stated intent to return), can present a genuinely contested domicile question - with real consequences, since the answer determines which country's succession law governs their movable estate in its entirety.

Multiple wills covering the same estate create interpretive risk, not just

convenience. A common and reasonable practice among NRIs is to execute separate wills for separate jurisdictions - one covering Indian assets, one covering assets in their country of residence - to simplify probate in each jurisdiction. Done carefully, with clear language confirming each will is limited to assets in its named jurisdiction and does not revoke wills covering other jurisdictions, this works well. Done carelessly - with inconsistent revocation clauses, or ambiguity about which will covers which asset - multiple wills can inadvertently revoke each other in whole or part, or leave certain assets uncovered by any will, precisely the outcome careful multi-jurisdictional planning is meant to prevent.

Islamic personal law succession for cross-border Muslim families. Where the deceased is Muslim and holds assets across India and a jurisdiction applying a different school or codification of Islamic inheritance law, the specific shares due to heirs can differ meaningfully between the applicable Indian Muslim personal law framework (Sunni Hanafi law, for the majority of Indian Muslims, absent contrary personal law application) and the codified inheritance statute of another Muslim-majority jurisdiction - requiring careful jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction analysis rather than an assumption that "Islamic inheritance law" produces a uniform result globally.

The Practical Advisory Response

• Establish domicile deliberately, not by default, for any client with genuinely ambiguous ties - documenting stated intent, primary residence, and the practical realities of where the family actually lives, works, and intends to remain, since this single factual determination can decide which country's law governs the bulk of a cross-border estate.

• Draft jurisdiction-specific wills with explicit, mutually consistent scope and revocation language - each will should expressly state which assets and jurisdictions it covers, and expressly preserve (rather than silently risk revoking) wills covering other jurisdictions.

• Check forced heirship exposure before finalising a will's dispositive scheme, wherever the client's domicile, or a domicile they may plausibly be found to hold, applies mandatory heirship rules - a will drafted purely against Indian legal assumptions can fail, in whole or part, against a forced heirship regime the client did not realise applied to them.

• Coordinate, rather than draft in isolation, with counsel in the client's other relevant jurisdiction(s)** - cross-border succession planning done by an Indian practitioner alone, without visibility into the other jurisdiction's succession and forced heirship rules, is planning done with half the relevant law invisible.

The Broader Point

Cross-border succession is not a problem Indian law resolves neatly through a single applicable-law rule; it resolves it through a split framework (movables by domicile, immovables by lex situs) that itself generates real complexity for families with assets and ties spread across multiple legal systems. The practical risk for private clients is not exotic - it is the ordinary case of an NRI assuming their single Indian-drafted will "covers everything," when in fact a different country's succession law may already be operating, unnoticed, on a meaningful part of their estate.