Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in India

My sister is occupying part of the ancestral property passed on by my grandfather in Bangalore, India woth about Rs 1.5 crore today. I am in the US. My parents are alive, old and feeble. My father had unregistered wills that he disposed of. He is not willing to write a legal will again. My sister may be trying to illegally occupy the entire household upon his death. My father is trying to disinherit me on the grounds that my wealth and position far exceed that of my sister. My mother is favorable that I get a fair share.

What are my options?

Brief History:

My father has ancestral property that he inherited from his father (my grandfather) upon his passing in 1968 by way of a will.

He married my mother in 1963 and they have been together ever since.

He has a son (myself) born in 1964 and a daughter (my sister) born in 1974.

Financial Situation of my Father.

He has developed the property by reconstruction of the ground floor in 1977 at a cost of around Rs 45,000.

He took early retirement from a Bosch subsidiary in 1983 and was living off interest earned from his retirement package.

This was barely sufficient for him to maintain the family. He sold other land holdings to support himself.

I came to the US in 1987 to Graduate School in Stony Brook, New York. I worked hard and excelled in high technology research and found a job at NASA and began to repatriate some money to support my parents and unmarried sister. I even helped get my father defray a major portion of expenses for my sister's wedding in 1996. I was rising in my career in Accenture at that time.

My sister lived in her parents-in-law's house for hardly a week and then returned to my father's home to live with them. Her husband followed later and they had a daughter while living in my father's house.

Using the money repatriated by me, meant for clothing, medicine and to afford a better lifestyle for my mother who comes from Lucknow, my father constructed a unit upstairs in 2002 on the ancestral property for my sister's family at a cost of Rs 4.5 lakh. My sister's contribution was around Rs 60,000. I came to know of this only thru relatives.

My father continued to demand more money in the 2000-2008 which he was using to now subsidize everything from baby food, school fees and full boarding of my sister's family.

My sister professed to everyone that she was helping my aging parents. In fact, she was severely beating my dad and being very abusive towards my mother and offering no help. She was extremely aggressive towards me when I visited them in 2010 on a fact finding trip.

During this fact finding trip, I understood the severity of the malaise in the family.

Under the advise of a lawyer, I tried to seek an amicable solution to partition the house and that I would maintain my parents in my portion until their passing. My sister made unreasonable demands. In the year since, her demands have grown even more outrageous. My fear is that she will swoop down and occupy the remaining parts of the house once one or both my parents pass on.

I am determined to put a stop to this greedy, ungrateful and greedy sister, protect my mother from the rotten father-sister combo and protect my inheritance.

What are my options?

I

My sister is occupying part of the property. I am concerned that she will occupy the rest of the property when my father passes on. He is not leaving a will. My sister is not willing to enter into a Family Settlement deed. My mother is alive and favors equitable distribution between my sister and I.

What are my options?

3 Answers from Attorneys

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