An estate plan in India is usually three documents and one decision. The documents are a will, a nomination on each financial asset, and a power of attorney for incapacity. The decision is whether any of it should sit in a trust instead, and that one is settled by a number: registering a will costs Rs 100 at a Sub-Registrar in Maharashtra, while moving the same flat into a private family trust is stamped at five per cent of its market value.

On a flat worth two crore, that is the difference between a hundred rupees and ten lakh. Almost every estate-planning checklist published in India lists the documents and never puts that number next to them, which is why families arrive at the decision having read a great deal and still not knowing what it costs.

Where this page sits

This page covers what an Indian estate plan is made of and what each part costs: the documents, the government fees on each, the will-or-trust decision, what happens if you leave it, and what changed in December 2025.

It is the overview. Where a section below has its own guide, the link goes to it.

Related guides:

• Family trust versus will, for the decision in detail
• Estate planning for NRIs, if your assets and your address are in different countries
• Nominee versus legal heir, which is the mistake this page warns about twice

What Does an Estate Plan in India Actually Consist Of?

A will, a nomination on each financial asset, a power of attorney, and in some families a trust. Most people need the first three.

The commonest failure in Indian estate planning is treating the second row as though it were the first. A nomination is a receipt instruction, not a bequest. Where a will and a nomination disagree, the nominee may collect the money and still hold it for whoever the will or the law says is entitled, which is how a family ends up litigating over an account that was, on paper, perfectly organised.

A power of attorney is the row most plans skip entirely. It is the only one of the four that does anything if you are alive but unable to act, and it is worthless the moment it is needed if it was never made.

What Does Each Part of an Estate Plan Cost to Put in Place?

The government charges are small for everything except funding a trust, and that single asymmetry decides most plans.

A will costs nothing to make. It needs your signature and two witnesses, and section 63(c) of the Indian Succession Act adds almost nothing to that: the witnesses each sign in your presence, they need not be present at the same time, and no particular form of attestation is required. No notary, no stamp paper, no registration.

Registering it is optional. Section 18 of the Registration Act 1908 is headed "Documents of which registration is optional" and clause (e) is wills. Where you do register, Maharashtra charges Rs 100 under "Wills and Authorities to Adopt" in its registration fee table, and a will attracts no stamp duty there at any value. The same Rs 100 covers cancelling it, depositing it sealed, withdrawing it and registering it after death. Section 40(1) lets you present it at any Sub-Registrar, so you are not tied to the office nearest the property.

A trust is the different order of magnitude. Under Schedule I to the Maharashtra Stamp Act, a private family trust into which property is settled is stamped at five per cent of the market value of that property. The two per cent figure that circulates is the religious or charitable rate and does not apply to a family trust. A trust deed that disposes of no property is Rs 500.

Every state legislates its own rates, so these are Maharashtra's and not India's. What travels is the shape: a will is close to free and a funded trust is priced like a sale.

This matters because the two instruments are usually presented as alternatives of similar weight, and financially they are not. A trust has to earn ten lakh on a two crore flat before it is the better answer.

Do You Need a Trust, or Is a Will Enough?

For most families a will is enough, and the exceptions are specific rather than a matter of wealth.

A trust earns its stamp duty in three situations: a beneficiary who cannot manage money, whether because of age, disability or otherwise; a business or shareholding that has to pass intact rather than be divided; and a transfer that has to stay out of a public record. Outside those, a will does the same job for a hundred rupees.

The family trust versus will guide works the comparison through properly. What belongs here is the ordering: decide the question before you price the structure, because the cost of the structure is what most people use to decide the question, and that is backwards.

What Happens to Your Property If You Do Nothing?

It goes to a list drawn up in 1956, in shares fixed by statute, in an order you had no part in choosing.

For a Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain dying without a will, section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 sends the property first to the Class I heirs in the Schedule, who take simultaneously and in equal shares. Sons, daughters, the widow and the mother are all Class I, and since the 2005 amendment a daughter is a coparcener in the same way a son is. If there is no Class I heir it moves to Class II, then to agnates, then to cognates.

Nothing in that list is unreasonable. The point is that it is a list, and it takes no account of the flat one child already lives in, the business one of them runs, the loan another repaid, or the parent one of them cared for. Intestacy does not produce chaos. It produces an outcome the family did not choose and now has to live inside.

The practical cost is not the shares. It is that every heir must be identified and must consent before anything moves, which is what turns a straightforward transfer into months of paperwork and, where the heirs disagree, into a suit.

What Changed in December 2025, and Does It Affect Your Plan?

One step came out of the process, and it is a step families in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata used to plan around.

Until 20 December 2025, section 213 of the Indian Succession Act barred an executor or legatee from establishing any right under certain wills until a court had granted probate. It caught wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains inside the original civil jurisdictions of the Bombay and Madras High Courts and the old Bengal territories, and wills made outside those limits so far as they dealt with immovable property inside them.

The Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 omitted the section outright, removed the cross reference from section 3(1), and amended section 370 so that a succession certificate no longer turns on probate. It received assent on 20 December 2025 and carries no commencement clause, so it took effect that day.

Two things did not change with it, and they are the ones that decide whether your plan is any easier. A bank or a housing society can still ask for a court grant before it releases or transfers an asset, and that is a commercial requirement rather than a legal one. And a disputed will still ends up in court, because the repeal removed a procedural precondition and not the possibility of a challenge.

So the honest answer for a plan being written now is that probate has moved from something the law required to something an institution might ask for, and the way to reduce the chance of being asked is the same as it always was: a will that is clear about what it covers, witnessed properly, and stored where the executor can produce it.

In What Order Should the Documents Be Done?

Assets first, decisions second, drafting third, and stamping last, because the order is what decides whether you pay stamp duty you did not need to pay.

List what you own, and how it is held. Jointly held property, a flat with a co-owner, shares in a demat account and a partnership interest each behave differently on death, and some of them will not pass under a will at all. A plan built on a list that says "flat in Pune" without saying whose name is on the agreement is a plan built on a guess.

Check every nomination against what you intend. This is free, takes an afternoon, and is the single highest-value step on this page. Banks, insurers, mutual funds, the provident fund and the depository each hold their own nomination, they are frequently decades out of date, and a nomination that contradicts a will produces exactly the dispute the will was written to prevent.

Decide the structure before you price it. Whether a dependant needs a trust, whether a business needs a separate succession arrangement, and whether anything needs to stay off a public record are decisions about your family. Once they are settled, the stamp duty is arithmetic. Taken the other way round, the arithmetic makes the decision, and it usually makes it wrong.

Then draft, and stamp only what has to be stamped. A will and a power of attorney carry no stamp duty on their value. A trust that has to hold property does. If a trust is genuinely needed, what goes into it, and when, is worth an hour of advice before anything is executed, because the duty is charged on what is settled and not on what the deed is called.

Reviewing matters more than most plans allow for. Marriage, a birth, a death, a property sale and a move abroad are the five events that most often make an existing will wrong, and none of them prompts anyone to reread it.

Who Needs More Than a Will?

Anyone whose assets do not sit still, and anyone whose family will not agree.

Business owners need succession planning as a separate exercise, because a shareholding divided equally among heirs who do not all work in the business is a governance problem rather than an inheritance one. NRIs need to know that Indian law governs their Indian immovable property regardless of where they live, which is set out in the estate planning for NRIs guide. Families with a dependant who cannot manage money need the trust, and that is the clearest case for paying the stamp duty.

Everyone else needs a will, the nominations checked against it, and a power of attorney, reviewed whenever the family or the asset list changes materially. Marriage, a birth, a death, a property sale and a move abroad are the five events that most often make an existing plan wrong.

Getting the documents drafted is the short part. Deciding which of the four instruments each asset belongs in, and in what order to execute them so you are not paying stamp duty you did not need to pay, is the part worth taking advice on.

FAQs

What does estate planning cost in India?

The government charges are small for everything except a trust. A will costs nothing to make and Rs 100 to register in Maharashtra, and attracts no stamp duty at any value. A private family trust into which property is settled is stamped at five per cent of that property's market value in Maharashtra. Rates are set state by state. Professional fees are separate and are quoted on enquiry.

Is a will enough, or do I need a trust?

For most families a will is enough. A trust earns its cost in three situations: a beneficiary who cannot manage money, a business that must pass intact, and a transfer that must stay out of a public record. On a two crore flat in Maharashtra the difference in government charges alone is Rs 100 against roughly ten lakh.

Does a will have to be registered in India?

No. Section 18(e) of the Registration Act 1908 lists wills among documents of which registration is optional. Registration does not create validity and does not prevent a challenge. What it gives you is a copy in the Registrar's custody that cannot be lost or replaced.

Is a nomination the same as a will?

No, and treating it as one is the commonest mistake in Indian estate planning. A nomination tells a bank or an insurer whom to pay. It does not decide who inherits. A nominee can receive the money and still hold it for the people the will or the law says are entitled.

What happens if I die without a will in India?

The property devolves under the personal law that applies to you. For a Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain, section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 sends it to the Class I heirs listed in the Schedule, who take simultaneously. Every heir must then be identified and must consent before anything can be transferred.

Is probate still required for a will in India?

Not as a matter of law. Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, which made probate the precondition to establishing a right under certain wills, was omitted by the Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 with effect from 20 December 2025. A bank or a housing society may still ask for a grant, and a disputed will still goes to court.

How often should an estate plan be reviewed?

Whenever the family or the asset list changes materially rather than on a fixed schedule. Marriage, a birth, a death, the sale or purchase of property and a move abroad are the five events that most often make an existing will wrong.