Punjab counsel for families in Britain.

The UK and India are both parties to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a Power of Attorney signed before a UK notary and then apostilled by the FCDO Legalisation Office is accepted in India without further attestation by the Indian High Commission. Once it reaches India it must be adjudicated and stamped, and Section 18 of the Indian Stamp Act allows three months from receipt in India for that, so it should not be posted and forgotten.

Usually yes, though it gets harder with each generation that passes. What is needed is proof of the chain of heirship and then mutation of the revenue records in favour of the current heirs, and where the family disagrees, a partition suit to define shares. The obstacle is rarely the law — it is that nobody has assembled the death certificates and heirship evidence. We do that from here.

India is five and a half hours ahead of the UK, which is the easiest gap of any major diaspora country. A late-afternoon call from London reaches us in the evening, and a morning call from Chandigarh reaches you before your working day starts.

Not as a matter of course. Under Section 13 of the Civil Procedure Code, and following Y. Narasimha Rao v. Y. Venkata Lakshmi, an English decree binds in India only where the foreign court had jurisdiction under the law the parties married under and granted the decree on a ground available under that law, with proper notice to the other spouse. Where it does not qualify, fresh proceedings in India may be needed — particularly before remarriage or any dealing with Indian property.

Yes. Where you already have solicitors handling a UK estate or matrimonial matter, we act as Indian counsel and correspond with them directly on the Indian limb, so you are not relaying instructions between two firms.