Five Things Indian Women Get Wrong About Their Inheritance

For many Indian women, inheritance planning sits at the uncomfortable intersection of law, family, and silence. The result is not just confusion, but costly misconceptions — often discovered only after a death, when it’s too late to fix them. Lawyers say the biggest problem isn’t bad advice. It’s that women are rarely told how the system actually works.

Here are five common misconceptions that continue to cost women control over their assets.

One of the most common assumptions is that inheritance in India follows a single, uniform rulebook. It doesn’t.

"In India, as we know, there is no uniform civil code," says Shaishavi Kadakia, Partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas . "We will have to look at the personal law of the deceased."

That complexity deepens further. The person "could be Hindu, Muslim, and even amongst Muslims- could be Sunni or Shia, or could be Christian or Parsi, etc," she explains.

Marriage can also change everything. "If a Hindu marries a Christian and solemnizes that marriage under the Special Marriage Act, then Hindu law ceases to apply," Kadakia says. "These are the complications that most people sort of don’t realise."

Identifying a legal heir is only step one, and often the easiest.

In India we don’t have a central asset register, Kadakia explains. "So legal heirs don’t even know what assets and liabilities the deceased left behind."

Poor documentation makes things worse. "Very often we have seen the documentation is not maintained properly," she adds.

Kadakia adds that, "There could be bank accounts, demat accounts, mutual funds, there are bank lockers, EPF, PPF, gratuity, life insurance, flat, societies, apartments, land."

Each asset requires separate paperwork and authorities. She explains that, "For each of these, you will have a different institution or officer to go to."

This belief stops many women before they even begin.

The most common mistake, lawyer and legal influencer Tanya Appachu Kaul, believes, is that women think that society will judge a woman if she asks for the property of her parents. Kaul says that, "Most women are not aware that they even get their parents' property."

Ironically, many women believe they will be protected through marriage instead. "You are told that that you are not going to get your parents property… and then you are told that you are going to get your husband’s property,” Kaul says. "But then the contradiction is that it’s the other way around. You are entitled to your parents' property but not your husband's.”

A will is powerful — but it is not invincible.

"It can still be challenged," says Kaul. "We cannot stop an heir if they feel aggrieved from going to court."

Challenges usually hinge on specific allegations like, "If the person alleges that the person who is making the will did not have mental capacity… or there was some influence on them or they were under duress or there was some fraud," Kaul explains.

That’s why precision matters. "If the request says that I have jewellery, and I am giving it to my children, and they can decide what they want, then that is not actually a request. It can then be challenged.” she says.

Delaying conversations is often what causes disputes later.

"This is a difficult conversation to drive but this is one that need to drive at any cost," Kadakia says. "Life is uncertain and you need to talk about how distribution of your assets would go around in your absence."

Avoiding the topic doesn’t protect families — it burdens them. "You are already dealing with this emotional burden of somebody passing," she notes, "and then you are dealing with the stress of not knowing what the assets are."

For Indian women, inheritance mistakes rarely come from neglect. They come from assumptions — about laws, about family, and about time.