- This topic has 42 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 5 months ago by
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U**Background**:
I (30M) have two sisters. One is well-settled and financially successful, while the other has faced significant financial struggles since losing her job during COVID, and her husband’s business collapsed, leading to debt. She has two children—one is earning a 20k salary and the other is studying. The settled sister often helps the struggling one. My father had a business that we shut down during COVID, and my mother passed away five years ago after a prolonged illness.
**Situation**:
After my marriage, my brothers-in-law demanded an equal share of my father’s property, even though my father had verbally told them he would give 20 lakh each to each sister, but no more. They humiliated him over this and cut contact. Both sisters followed suit and have been verbally abusive.
I live with my father, who has had four surgeries, and I’ve borne the expenses for my mother’s illness, my marriage, and my father’s medical needs. Seeing their behavior, my father transferred all assets to my name. We still wanted to help the struggling sister, offering 50 lakh to each sister, with the condition that they sign a document agreeing not to demand anything further. They initially agreed, but when asked to sign, they humiliated me and my father again.
**Query**:
Can my sisters or their families sue me after my father’s death or even while he is alive? All the property has been transferred and mutated in my name. My father has publicly disowned them, even publishing it in a newspaper. In his will, I am the sole heir. I still intend to give my sisters a total of 1 crore, but only after selling a property that my father and I bought together ten years ago, which is now in my name.
Please advise if any steps can be taken to ensure that no legal action can be taken in the future. I’m willing to pay for professional legal advice that guarantees a foolproof plan to prevent any lawsuits.
(throwaway account)
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MNot if the property is self acquired by your father.. If not you will be sued. Make sure the will is water tight and properly executed.
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UYes, the property was self acquired by my father. While setting up business my father got 1.5lakhs from his father some 40 years back, but he used the amount in setting up business and educating all the kids and marrying them off eventually. The amount given was cash. The property was purchased much later after business started flourishing a bit with only father’s money.
How to ensure that will is executed properly? What proofs should I keep handy to show that my father bought property from his own money?
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MThen you are ok. Grandfather giving money etc doesn’t count.
Consult a good lawyer regarding will. Don’t try to save money here.
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UHow to identify a good lawyer? The ones my friends and family shared didn’t give any other advice than father disowning sisters in a public manner by publishing in the newspaper.
If you know a good practising lawyer who can go through the will once, please connect me.
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UMy two cents. Donot give your ungrateful sisters a single paise. If you can give away 1 crore give it to a charity maybe set up a trust with scholarship for poor students as an example. The sisters who abused and cut off contact don’t deserve it.
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P1. I am for equitable distribution of inherited property among the children irrespective of gender but if what you say is true, your sisters(including the brother in laws) are terrible people. It was their duty too to look after your parents.
2. Even if you give them 50 lacs each, they may still believe they owe much more than that and may not stop them from suing you. How much is your total inheritance from your father?
3. Since the assets were self-acquired by your father, It is unlikely that they will win the litigation. However, you know the legal system is in the country. Who needs to prove whether the assets were self-acquired or inherited by your father? the defendent or the plaintiff ?
Who knows sometimes they may say that the will was forced or the person who made the will was mentally unfit to make the will at that time.
4. (Not a legal advice) How about selling the assets and transferring the money to buy some new assets? They still will be able to sue but it will be more difficult for them to get a share.
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UI want to do this as my father at one point did want to give them 20lakhs each and also as a settlement with them post father’s death so that the sisters stop pestering me and my family in future. Just that I want to do this legally with people present as evidence.
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URegistered will , published in 2 newspaper one English and local language should be enough to prove your case – get ur dad’s sworn affidavit stating the same would add to the same
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UI actually meant the newspaper publishing which is already done by you , you can do the same for will as the intent of publishing it is to let the world know that the will is made – the same is already done by registering the will ( which makes it a public document)
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UThanks. My father has registered will but as per the lawyer who helped with the will even with the registered will there is no guarantee if any case can be considered in future, hence asking here.
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UYour sisters will obviously challenge the will – also how did you transfer the properties to your name ? Through a sale or gift deed ?
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UA normal advice with respect to practical scenarios- make sure you have tight hold on those properties to prevent ( kabza ) from your sisters.
Wishing you the best take care brother 🫂
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P1. I am for equitable distribution of inherited property among the children irrespective of gender but if what you say is true, your sisters(including the brother in laws) are terrible people. It was their duty too to look after your parents.
2. Even if you give them 50 lacs each, they may still believe they owe much more than that and may not stop them from suing you. How much is your total inheritance from your father?
3. Since the assets were self-acquired by your father, It is unlikely that they will win the litigation. However, you know the legal system is in the country. Who needs to prove whether the assets were self-acquired or inherited by your father? the defendent or the plaintiff ?Who knows sometimes they may say that the will was forced or the person who made the will was mentally unfit to make the will at that time.
4. (Not a legal advice) How about selling the assets and transferring the money to buy some new assets? They still will be able to sue but it will be more difficult for them to get a share.
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UI am asking the question here on reddit because of the point you mentioned in point three. And that is why I have paid humongous amount in registry and mutation which wouldn’t have been required if i waited for will to execute naturally. Indian laws are pretty women centric and both me and my father understand it and hence we want to have thorough preparation while my father is alive and very much sane. I and wife have very good relation with my father and he is happy to cooperate in any way.
Point number 4 – are you suggesting this as a lawyer or layman? Asking this as I want serious advice and I am willing to pay for it, I don’t to play the guessing game of what could or couldn’t work.
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PI am not a lawyer(all my advice was just as a layman). I have seen how long can property disputes can last even when you have all the evidences and courts take a lot of time.
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UHe is not telling how much he has got from his dad, it can be 100s or 10s of crores. The sisters know this and that is why they are not settling for such tokens.
SIsters are horrible people or not, I do not know, But think about it.
r/towxindia keeps debating this kind of stories, their version goes something like this
– my father was an abusive person
– my mom died due to his abuse
– all the assets are with my brother
*** ignores that brother took father’s healthcare and will ***
– how can Indian parents do this?
– he is giving us token amount
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UEverything included is total 6cr but one of the property is the house i live in with my family and father. They want 1cr each. They stopped even visiting once father refused paying such huge sums first time, leave alone taking care of or spending a single rupee on father for medical or any other gifts etc.
They were horrible people when they raised me but yes greed can pretty much change any person’s personality. I am saying this as they literally created hell in my life. Brother in law came to our house screaming and one of the brother in law tried to slap my wife. There was a huge drama in street. We are pretty decent family and I never imagined something like this would happen to us. They raised me in childhood and in adulthood they gifted me all my BP related problems.
All i want is to protect myself and my family. I don’t think I owe than anything more than what I am willing to give given the pain they have brought in our lives and also given they were gifted gold and what not in their weddings. Atleast both of them have their own homes and one of them has three big houses. I want to help the one who is struggling and I tried to reason with her but to no vail.
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UI will share you an incident from my locality. Two sisters, one brother. Property issues.
After father’s death, two sisters in unison filed fake sexual harrasment and attempt to murder charges against the brother and his best friend (a neighbour) for the property. His best friend was dragged into the case to exert more pressure on the brother.
>They humiliated him over this and cut contact. Both sisters followed suit and have been verbally abusive.
If they are willing to do this, they won’t hesitate to pull a bigger plan than the one I’ve aforementioned with the help of lawyers. This is your time to retrospect. Install cameras around the house, talk to lawyers about further steps. Stay safe.
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U>After father’s death, two sisters in unison filed fake sexual harrasment and attempt to murder charges against the brother and his best friend (a neighbour) for the property. His best friend was dragged into the case to exert more pressure on the brother.
then what happened?
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U>I live with my father, who has had four surgeries, and I’ve borne the expenses for my mother’s illness, my marriage, and my father’s medical needs.
The INdian court will ignore this, it might fetch you points here but the killer judge is eying your plots and cash.
Here is what you should do
Do you trust your wife? Transfer it all to your wife’s name and your sister’s cannnot do anything. Play women against each other.
In every other case you will loose, the hindu inheritence law is clear.
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UYou will be sued, that’s a given. Be prepared to fight it out in courts. It might be best to proactively file a case that results in your father giving verbal testimony in court about him being of sound mind and body, not pressured by you, and willingly giving you all properties with the daughters getting 50L each. But consult a lawyer on how best to shore up your defenses against eventual legal attacks. NAL.
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UDude things are already worse. They humiliated your father and you already. Be smart here do you think they will stop after you agree to even give them 50 lacs each.
Don’t pay them shit. Full proof of your assets , talk to a good lawyer, start recording calls and messages , install camera here n there. Don’t let them all come near your house when you are all alone( recently a murder happened in the same situation brother in law came to talk with a group , things that got heated and killed the guy).
At this time if you lose your property or something happens to you it’s all on you prepare for the worst. And plan accordingly. -
DInstall CCTVs at home, I see assault allegations incoming. Don’t meet them at any place you aren’t familiar. Don’t commit anything verbally, listen more talk less-lesser chance of saying something out of passion, make the will airtight and renew it until the time your dad’s mental health is good, get regular full body work for your dad to show his mental health is top notch, have some basic work done if there are lands to prevent illegal occupation from other parties-high walls and cctv should be a good place to start
Good luck
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UMy family had bought a land at fair market price in 1990. In 2009, previous owner died. After 2 months, previous owners daughter-in-law filed a case alleging that my family grabbed their land. Case dragged for 15 years. We won till HC. But ultimately we had to sell land and a settlement was done to give the daughter in law 15 lakh to withdraw case. we had to spend lakhs on court cases. In mean time land value increased by 8X. That is only good thing happened in whole saga.
Nothing related to your scenario, but anything is possible in India.
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U*Can my sisters or their families sue me after my father’s death or even while he is alive?*
Yes. Suing is a rich man’s game and has no restrictions. Anybody with sufficient money to burn can have fun in the Courts.
*Please advise if any steps can be taken to ensure that no legal action can be taken in the future.*
There can be not steps that no legal action is precluded. What you can do is prepare for it.
If it is self-acquired property of your father, from his own funds, there is nothing to be worried about really. Since all the property has already been transferred in your name during the lifetime of your father, you don’t even NEED a Will. However, have one made just to be on the safe side. Now, since the property has already been transferred and mutated and cannot be made a subject of inheritance, let the Will just state this fact, and any other property left out. Have the Will registered. You cannot be a witness to it; have to be witnessed by two persons with integrity, who you trust.
From my experience, the case that your sister(s) will try to build would be, that the ‘nucleus’ of the property was ancestral funds, i.e. even though your father purchased the property in his own name, from his own funds, these very funds can be located or traced back to some joint family corpus. What is most important in such cases, is to prepare beforehand; collect as many documents as you can, to show that there was no ancestral corpus/nucleus that was used by your father to earn money.
Newspaper disownment is neither here, nor there and not looked upon as a weighty piece of evidence by Courts. If it makes you feel better, get is published in national dailies in English and local language having a wide circulation (in Delhi, we generally go by Tribune and Navbharat).
*I’m willing to pay for professional legal advice that guarantees a foolproof plan*
Any lawyer who guarantees you any outcome, stay miles away from such lawyer. Any good lawyer will tell you the pros and cons of your case, the likely outcome, the probable time it would take, but NEVER a guarantee. For the simple reason that the outcome is NEVER in the hands of the lawyer.
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UThank you so much for touching on all the details and your suggestions.
Can you please elaborate on – _you can engage a lawyer to file a caveat_? What should I ask a lawyer exactly?
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UThe lawyer would understand what a Caveat petition is. What happens is, a Suit is filed and the Plaintiff (party filing the Suit) is heard. Court might pass orders, in the absence of the answering party (Defendant), that the Defendant will not sell or transfer the property in question. It’s called as ex-parte interim order, i.e. an order made in the absence of the other party.
When there’s a Caveat in place, the Court will not pass any order, unless the Defendant is also present and heard.
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UPublishing things in paper has legal advantage? Not that I know
The will when written in sound mind following due process will stand. Maybe the sisters will attack the will as being illegal, forged or taken in duress. Without a will, all children get equal share.
This is not legal advice but my personal unsolicited one.
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