An NRI who has made a will in their country of residence generally assumes it covers everything they own. For immovable property in India, it does not - and the reason is a conflict-of-laws rule that applies regardless of how comprehensively the foreign will is drafted.
- Immovable property follows lex situs - the law of the place where the property is physically located. An apartment in Mumbai is governed by Indian succession law whoever owns it and wherever they live.
- Movable property follows lex domicilii - the law of the deceased’s domicile. Bank balances, securities and similar assets are governed by where the owner was domiciled, not where the asset happens to be held.
One Will Can Be Valid on Movables and Void on the Flat
So a single will can be simultaneously effective and ineffective across one person’s estate: valid as to their movables under their domicile’s law, and without operative effect on the Indian flat it confidently purports to devise.
Two Wills, Neither Revoking the Other
This is why the conventional structure for someone with assets in two countries is two wills - one per jurisdiction, each dealing only with the assets situated there, and each drafted so it expressly does not revoke the other. A standard revocation clause saying “this revokes all previous wills” is the classic drafting failure here: a later foreign will, written without contemplating the Indian one, can wipe it out and leave the Indian assets to pass by intestate succession.
The practical benefit of separate wills is procedural as much as legal. Each can be dealt with in its own jurisdiction in parallel, rather than one estate waiting on the other to complete first - which, across two legal systems with different timelines, is often the difference between an estate settling in months and settling in years.
Check the revocation clause before anything else. A later foreign will saying it revokes all previous wills is the classic failure here - it can wipe out the Indian will and send the Indian property to intestate succession, which is precisely the outcome the drafting was meant to avoid.
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