Wills and succession planning for India

Your legacy, simplified™

Waseeyat™ helps you make a will designed against the reasons Indian courts reject wills, keep it safe, and leave your family a clear path. You answer plain questions, a person checks the draft, and you sign it on paper, in ink, before two witnesses.

Start your willHow it works

We are opening soon. Sign-up opens once everything that keeps your will and documents safe is in place. Until then, the law library is open to read.

Start with your situation

What do you need?

Pick the one closest to yours. Each card gives a short answer and the next page to read.

Make or update a will

Answer plain questions. Waseeyat applies the rules of the law that governs your will, then checks your answers for gaps and contradictions before it makes a draft.
How it works

After a loss

The executor named in the will carries it out. The law sets the order: funeral costs, the costs of the estate and the deceased's debts first, and only then the gifts the will makes.
After a loss: a plain guide

Nominations and your will

A nominee is the person a bank, company or fund pays, or transfers an asset to, after a death. For bank deposits and shares, your will or the law of succession decides who keeps it. Life insurance naming a parent, spouse or child has its own rule. When you list what you own, Waseeyat asks for the nominee on record for each asset, so you have both in one place.
Nominations and your will: a plain guide

Register or deposit a will

Registering a will is optional, and a registered will still has to be proved through a witness. A quieter option is to deposit the will in a sealed cover with a Registrar, who keeps it until you take it back or until your death.
Register or deposit: a plain guide
Browse the law library
Why Waseeyat

A will designed against the reasons Indian courts reject wills

The person relying on a will has to prove that it was properly made, and explain anything about it that looks suspicious. Much of what goes wrong can be prevented on the day the will is signed. So every Waseeyat will is built with these safeguards.

Signed the way the law asks

Your will is printed for the signing day. The date and place are already in it, with a place for your signature at the end, initials lines on every page of the will, and an attestation clause recording how the witnesses signed. Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act asks for your signature and at least two attesting witnesses: people who see you sign, or hear you confirm your signature, and then sign in your presence.

Witnesses who can be found later

A checklist helps you choose adults who know you, receive nothing under the will, and are likely to be reachable for many years. The will records who they are and how to reach them, because one of them may have to tell a court what they saw (Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, the evidence law, section 67).

Your own decision, protected

The signing kit asks that people who receive something under the will are not in the room and do not organise the signing. The Supreme Court has said that if the person putting a will forward took a prominent part in making it and receives a substantial benefit under it, that is generally treated as a suspicious circumstance. They must then remove that suspicion with clear and satisfactory evidence (H. Venkatachala Iyengar v. B. N. Thimmajamma, 1958).

Your state of mind on record

If you are 80 or older, or tell us about a serious illness, the kit includes a doctor's fitness certificate form. We recommend having it completed on the signing day. The law asks that a person making a will is of sound mind (Indian Succession Act, section 59).

A language you understand

If the will is in a language you do not read, it records who read it over and explained it to you. For now, wills are drafted in English. Hindi and Urdu will text is coming.

Nothing left to guess

Before a draft is made, your answers are checked for contradictions. You are asked to list every child, including married daughters and any child who has died. Each asset can be given only once, and shares must add up to the whole. Your property is listed in a schedule printed inside the will. Each gift names someone to receive it if the first person dies before you, and a final clause says who receives everything else. Every will states that it cancels your earlier wills and codicils. Nothing is left blank to fill in by hand, apart from the signatures and initials.
Why courts reject wills
How it works

Four steps, from questions to a will kept safe

A will made with Waseeyat is valid only once it is printed and signed by you on paper, in front of two witnesses who also sign.

  1. Answer plain questions

    About your family, what you own and who should receive it. Waseeyat asks your religion only to apply the right law, and tells you why it asks. The guided will for Muslims is not open yet. Until it opens, a fixed-fee review by an empanelled advocate is offered instead.

  2. A person checks the draft

    A Waseeyat reviewer checks your draft before you can download the signing kit. If you change your answers after that check, the new draft must be checked again before you can download the kit. If you want an advocate's view as well, Waseeyat offers a review by an empanelled advocate at a fixed price. The advocate signs their own review.

  3. Print it and sign in ink, before two witnesses

    Two witnesses see you sign at the end of the will, and each then signs in your presence. The kit gives you a checklist for the day and a guide to choosing witnesses. Indian law does not allow a will to be signed electronically, so Waseeyat never offers it.

  4. Keep it safe

    Keep the signed original safe and tell your executor where it is. Scan every page into your private Waseeyat vault, and update where the original is kept whenever it moves.
See how it works
Our promise

Where there's a will, there's Waseeyat

We help you make a will designed to hold up, keep it safe, and leave your family a clear path.

Fixed prices, shown before you pay

Prices are fixed and shown before you pay. Any government or court fee is separate from our price.

Never a share of your estate

Waseeyat never takes a share of anyone's estate.

Always on paper

Your will is always signed in ink, on paper, before two witnesses.
Start your will
Who we are

Clear about what we are, careful with what you share

Waseeyat is a technology-enabled will-drafting and succession-planning service.

Not a law firm

We do not give legal advice. We do not decide who inherits when a family disagrees: that is for the courts.

Independent advocates, fixed prices

When you want an advocate's help, Waseeyat assigns an empanelled advocate at a fixed price, quoted before the work starts. The advocate is independently responsible for their own work and signs it. We do not rank, rate or advertise advocates.

Your vault stays private

Each file in your vault is encrypted with its own key and stored in Mumbai, India. Our servers in Singapore check and encrypt a file when you add it. Your files open only from your own account. Our staff screens never show them, and no AI reads them. We make one exception ourselves: the scan of your signed will, which goes with your will record after your death or on a written order. If you buy an advocate's check of your signed will, you can choose to share that one scan with the advocate. Anything else leaves your vault only if the law requires it.

Your will record goes only to the right people

Waseeyat keeps a record of how your will was prepared. It is not your will: your will is the paper you sign. The record goes only to you; to your executor, after we have checked the death and who they are; to the holder of a grant of probate or letters of administration; or to a court or the police on a written order. Nobody else.
Write to us
Sunset Literacy

Plain guidance, with its sources

Sunset Literacy is our public-education work: plain, sourced guidance on wills and on what happens after a death, so families can talk about it calmly and act on it properly.

Guides and free tools

Plain guides to making, signing and registering a will and to what follows a death, a signing-day checklist to print, and a readiness check that saves nothing you answer.
Explore Sunset Literacy

The law library

Every note states a rule in plain words and names its source: the Act, the section and the date the official text was read. When the library has no reliable source for a question, it says so instead of guessing.
Open the law library

Sunset Literacy sessions

We are planning talks for housing societies, senior citizens' groups and workplaces. You will be able to ask for one when our contact form opens.
Questions families ask

Short answers, with their sources

Does a will need stamp paper or a notary?

No. The Indian Stamp Act, 1899 charges no duty on a will, and section 63 of the Indian Succession Act does not require a notary. Some states have their own stamp laws, so check before you rely on this in your state.

Can I sign my will online?

No. Indian law does not let a will be made with an electronic signature (Information Technology Act, 2000, section 1(4) and the First Schedule, entry 4). A Waseeyat will is always printed, signed in ink or with a thumb mark, and witnessed on paper.

Do I have to register my will?

No. Registration is optional (Registration Act, 1908, section 18(e)). A registered will must still be proved through an attesting witness if one is alive and able to give evidence (Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, section 67).

Read more questions

Start your will when you are ready

Waseeyat is opening soon. Sign-up opens once everything that keeps your will and documents safe is in place. Until then, the law library is open to read.

Start your willOpen the law library

A question now? The contact form opens with the rest of Waseeyat. Until then, the contact page gives our email address. Contact