NRI Guide · 7 min read
NRI estate planning: what you must do before it's too late
If your assets are in India and your family is spread across the US, UK, Gulf, Singapore or Canada, the settlement process after your death is not automatic — it is a multi-country paperwork sprint with consular apostilles, bilingual notarisation, and Indian succession law that many families learn the hard way.
The five gaps that hurt NRI families
- No Indian will. A US or UK will does not execute cleanly over Indian immovable property. A separate Indian will — properly stamped, signed, witnessed — is usually required.
- Stale NRO/NRE nominations. Most NRIs opened their NRE/NRO accounts years ago and never updated the nominee. Banks will pay the named nominee, not necessarily the rightful heir.
- Untraceable holdings.NCDs, mutual funds, unclaimed PF, EPF, an inherited flat in Pune, a plot in Kerala — your spouse abroad cannot produce a clean list without you.
- Frozen digital access.Two-factor logins tied to a phone that roams in Dubai. Cloud storage behind a Google account the family cannot reset. The information exists but is locked behind credentials no one else can reach.
- Repatriation limits.Even once the family wins transmission, repatriation from NRO accounts is capped (currently USD 1 million per financial year). Without planning, cash sits in India for years.
A working NRI estate plan
You don't need a $5,000 private-client engagement. You need four things that work together:
- A will in your country of residence covering local assets.
- An Indian will covering Indian immovable and financial assets.
- A clean nomination sheet across every Indian bank, demat, PPF, EPF, MF, insurance and property holding.
- A living, updatable instruction sheet your family can actually find and read.
Where OnwardSafe fits for NRIs
OnwardSafe is the fourth item above — the instruction sheet, reachable from any timezone. You record a calm video message for your spouse, upload scanned property papers, list account numbers, specify which bank manager to call first, and assign 2-of-3 guardians who can confirm inactivity. Nothing in the vault is readable by us. When the family needs it, they get a signed, expiring link — not a 2 AM scramble through your Gmail archive.
Your legal will transfers ownership. OnwardSafe transfers knowledge — the part that, for most NRI families, takes longer and causes more pain than the legal work.