NRI Legal Services

The will to Will it all – and plan it too! : We could confine ourselves to just providing professional legal services, but our concern for our clients pushes us to inform and educate them about the various laws and safety measures they can take to protect their interests. Don’t we all just want to look back at our lives in contentment and then leave this

Kamaljit Singh and his sisters came to the Leicester office of the company with the need for what is apparently the most ‘basic’ service we offer – yet often ends up being the most complicated! Land Search – something that clients approach us with assuming that it is ‘just’ about locating a few documents in their native places, least realising that it takes tremendous effort to trace out the records of any property. Kamaljit’s father bought a plot of land in 1971 and later, transferred one part of it in the name of his son, one part in the name of Kamaljit’s brother and one part in his own name. Since Kamaljit and his brother were both living in the US by then, their father appointed a caretaker for the property. Unfortunately, when Kamaljit came to our New Jersey office , he did not even remember the caretaker’s name. Kamal also had two sisters who were not interested in the property and had already signed documents handing over the property to their brothers. Kamaljit’s ...

Family forms the core of everything in life – that’s why we like to avoid disputes and misunderstandings within the family. Sometimes, ancestral property can make you joint owners with another relative. In this process, we often end up being in dispute with either somebody who currently has possession of the property or somebody who would like to be so! These are the situations wherein filing of Partition Suit is the best legal remedy available for an NRI or overseas citizen. Whether the property is land or house or a commercial establishment, partition of the property becomes a crucial step for management of property.

Sometimes this cup we are talking about contains the property or other wealth of a parent! This was the case with Balwant Kaur, who came to us because she wanted to contest the transfer of ancestral property by her father to her sister’s name. She felt it was unfair for the ancestral property to be handed over exclusively to just one daughter. Her other siblings supported her and were ready to sign papers to hand over their shares of the property to her too. Encouraged by this and the discussions she had with the legal experts, she went ahead and challenged the transfer of the property. Check out more on these transfer issues on www.nrilegalservices.com

This particular case that Manjit Kaur from Ferozepur brought to us, was a sad case of a general power of attorney being misused to indulge in illegal transfer of property in somebody else’s name. She came forward with this issue on behalf of her Uncle Gurmeet Singh who lived in Preston and unfortunately was living the life of a dependent since he was disabled. Worse, his son, Harjeet Singh turned a drug addict and was no longer under the control of his father – or for that matter, anybody else! However, Gurmeet was keen to do his best for Harjeet’s wife Manmeet so that she would have financial security for her life as well as for the upbringing of her children.   With this in mind, he thought of his property in Ferozepur and felt he could sell it off to build up a stable base for her. Since he couldn’t have been travelling back and forth to India, he got in touch with his old friend Gurjinder Singh and decided to give him a General Power of Attorney (GPA) to carry out...

NRIs often approach us with their misery regarding illegal occupation of property. The story takes the same form usually-they trusted somebody with their life’s assets and far away from their homeland woke up to the realisation one fine day that their property was under control of somebody else! Illegal occupation of property is one of the biggest threats for NRIs and will continue to loom large unless there is increased awareness of the precautions required. A piece of Property is one of the most effective ways that an individual establishes his status in a society. In fact an individual’s definition of himself gets affected to a large extent by his nomenclature in context of a particular piece of property. It carries even more meaning for NRIs since their property base is a major connection with their roots. For any individual, there could be four broad scenarios regarding his property. First , that he is the owner of the property and he resides in it himself. That would ...

Booking a property with a builder has its own share of anxieties and confusions. Toronto based Rohan Pandey was witness to something similar when his mother passed away and he found himself listed as a nominee in a group housing membership that she had in her name. Based in Gurgaon, near Delhi this society was supposed to have provision for a reasonably sized property with all basic amenities as part of the deal. Subsequently, he set about taking care of all pending payments. Meticulous to the core, he made all payments on time through proper channels and duly kept proof of the transactions too. Initially he was assured by the builders of a good sized piece of land. Gradually they shifted gear to provision of an apartment. In time, the commitment on that too seemed to waver with Rohan being given meaningless stories about some discrepancy in his nomination. Completely at a loss with the way things seemed to be working out, Rohan contacted the Toronto office of this company and sough...