Equity Market Volatility & the Long-Term Investor
June-2026
12:00 PM
Estate Planning for HNIs in India: Why Every HNI Needs a WILL & Why Getting It Right Matters More Than Ever
One of India's most prominent business families found themselves locked in a bitter inheritance dispute after their patriarch passed away, without a registered WILL. What followed between the two brothers was one of the most public and protracted succession battles in Indian corporate history. The feud consumed years, divided a remarkable empire, and riveted the nation. Yet at the heart of it all lay something deceptively simple: the absence of a WILL. For all the wealth that had been created, the one document that could have directed its future had never been signed.
More than two decades later, the lesson still has not fully landed. In India, talking about a WILL remains, for many affluent families, a taboo, an act that invokes unease around an issue that is, paradoxically, universal. The hesitations are familiar: it is too early, the family is close, the conversation WILL unsettle more than it resolves. These are understandable instincts. For high-net-worth individuals whose estates now span multiple asset classes, jurisdictions, and legal regimes, they are also potentially ruinous ones.
India's HNI population stands at nearly 378,810 having added over 33,000 new millionaires in a single year, according to the World Wealth Report 2025. But this wealth is no longer concentrated in land and fixed income. It stretches across demat accounts, alternative investment funds, pre-IPO equity, ESOPs, foreign brokerage accounts and digital assets. The estate plan that served a simpler balance sheet five years ago is unlikely to serve this one.
When the law steps in
Without a valid WILL in place, the law steps in to distribute the estate. The outcome is formulaic, not personal. Under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the wealth of a male member passes equally to the wife, mother, and children; that of a female member, equally to the husband and children. The Indian Succession Act, 1925, which governs Christians and Parsis, prescribes its own ratios. Shariah law, applicable to Muslims, distributes assets in pre-determined proportions, with sons typically receiving twice the share of daughters.
None of these formulas are responsive to the specific realities of a family: the child who needs greater protection, the business that cannot be cleanly divided, the heir who is simply not yet ready to inherit. They are blunt instruments applied to situations that almost always require precision.
The procedural consequences are equally unwelcome. The family must approach a court for a Succession Certificate or a Letter of Administration, a process that routinely takes more than a year and can cost a significant percentage of the estate's value in legal and administrative fees. For families where children are settled abroad, the burden compounds: distance, unfamiliar legal systems, and prolonged court engagement during an already difficult period.
Then there is the problem of wealth that simply disappears. Over Rs. 1 lakh crore lies unclaimed today in banks, life insurance policies, mutual funds, company stocks, and EPFO accounts across India. In most cases, the assets exist. They are simply inaccessible because no one knew where to look. A WILL accompanied by a clear asset inventory is the most straightforward safeguard against this kind of loss. Without one, wealth built over decades can become unreachable in the wake of a loss.
The quiet risk of an outdated WILL
The nominee problem is one that catches even sophisticated clients off guard. Many HNIs register nominees across every account and policy and assume, reasonably enough, that this settles the question of succession. It does not. Indian law treats nominees inconsistently across asset classes. For bank accounts, lockers, and fixed deposits, the nominee is a custodian, not the owner. For immovable property, the rules diverge by state: in Maharashtra, the nominee is a custodian; in West Bengal, the nominee becomes the owner outright. Where a WILL's intended beneficiaries do not align with the nominees on record, the potential for conflict is significant, particularly when nominees were registered years ago and the WILL was drafted at a different time, by a different professional, with different intentions in mind.
A legal landscape that has moved on
The Income Tax Act 2025 substantially broadened the definition of Virtual Digital Assets under Section 2(111), extending it beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum to cover tokenised securities, non-fungible tokens, and Web3 instruments that do not yet have commonly recognised names. For estates with such holdings, the implications are real and immediate.
India's HNIs are also increasingly global. Overseas properties, foreign brokerage accounts, globally granted ESOPs, and children who are tax-resident in other countries are now common features of large Indian estates. A single Indian WILL cannot govern all of this. The US levies estate tax of up to 40 per cent on worldwide assets for green card holders; the UK applies 40 per cent inheritance tax on estates above £325,000 for UK-domiciled individuals. For Indian families with exposure to these jurisdictions, a co-ordinated multi-jurisdiction estate plan, with separate WILLs for each country carefully worded to not inadvertently revoke one another, is a practical necessity.
What a current estate plan requires
A well-constructed estate plan in 2026 begins with a WILL, but does not end there. The WILL must explicitly name every asset class: not merely property and financial investments, but unlisted equity, ESOPs, digital assets with access instructions, and valuable personal property such as art and collectibles. Nominations across all accounts and policies must be synchronized with the WILL's intended beneficiaries. Where they diverge, the conflict must be resolved before it reaches a court.
The WILL must also name an Executor: the individual legally responsible for carrying out its terms. Without one named, the court appoints one, removing the family's control at the moment they are least equipped to exercise it. Registration of the WILL, though not mandatory, is strongly advisable. A registered WILL is harder to challenge and creates a clear record of the testator's capacity at the time of signing.
As Mr. Feroze Azeez, Joint CEO of Anand Rathi Wealth Limited, has put it, a WILL is nothing but writing the implied: the intentions that already exist in a person's mind, made legible to the law. What demands a return to that document is the world shifting around those intentions. Asset classes evolve. Family circumstances move. A review every two to three years, or after any significant life event, is not excessive caution. For most HNIs, it is simply overdue.
The Rs. 1 lakh crore crores sitting unclaimed across India's financial system is not a monument to bad intentions. It is the accumulated cost of conversations postponed, documents not updated, and assets never mentioned. The legal environment of 2026 is not the one in which most existing estate plans were written. The assets are different, and the courts now recognise categories of property that had no legal standing when those documents were signed.
The question for any HNI is not whether they have a WILL. It is whether the WILL they have still reflects the estate they actually own, the family they actually have, and the legal world they are actually operating in. For most, the honest answer is that it does not.
