Inheritance Laws

June 29, 2011 Raahnuma

INHERITANCE LAWS

Law:

Inheritance law is dealt with according to Muslim laws of succession. Only a few of them were made ‘official’ by turning them into legislation.

Provision of Law:

Muslim Family Law Ordinance 1961

4. Succession:

In the event of death of any son or daughter of the propositus before the opening of succession, the children of such son or daughter, if any, living at the time the succession opens, shall per stripes, receive a share equivalent to the share which such son or daughter, as the case may be, would have received if alive.

Succession Act 1925

5.

  1. Succession to the immoveable property in Pak­istan of a person deceased shall be regulated by the law of Pakistan, wherever such person may have had his domicile at the time of his death.
  2. Succession to the moveable property of a person de­ceased is regulated by the law of the country in which such person had his domicile at the time of his death.

6. A person can have only one domicile for the purpose of the succession to his moveable property.

7. The domicile of origin of every person of legitimate birth is in the country in which at the time of his birth his father was domiciled ; or, if he is a posthumous child, in the country in which his father was domiciled at the time of the father’s death.

15. By marriage a woman acquires the domicile of her husband, if she had not the same domicile before.

20.

  1. No person shall, by marriage, acquire any interest in the property of the person whom he or she marries or become incapable of doing any act in respect of his or her own property which he or she could have done if unmarried.
  2. This section:
  • shall not apply to any marriage contracted before the first day of January, 1866 ;
  • shall not apply, and shall be deemed never to have applied, to any marriage one or both of the parties to which professed at the time of the marriage the Hindu, Muhammadan, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion.

27. For the purpose of succession, there is no distinction:

  • between those who are related to a person deceased through his father, and those who are related to him through his mother ; or
  • between those who are related to a person deceased by the full blood, and those who are related to him by the half blood ; or
  • between those who were actually born in the lifetime of a person deceased and those who at the date of his death were only conceived in the womb, but who have been subsequently born alive.

33. Where the intestate has left a widow:

  • if he has also left any lineal descendants, one‑third of his property shall belong to his widow, and the remaining two‑thirds shall go to his lineal descendants, according to the rules hereinafter contained;
  • save as provided by section 33A, if he has left no lineal descendant, but has left persons who are of kindred to him, one‑half of his property shall belong to his widow, and the other half shall go to those who are of kindred to him, in the order and according to the rules hereinafter contained;
  • if he has left none who are of kindred to him, the whole of his property shall belong to his widow.

37. Where the intestate has left surviving him a child or children, but no more remote lineal descendant through a deceas­ed child, the property shall belong to his surviving child, if there is only one, or shall be equally divided among all his surviving children.

38. Where the intestate has not left surviving him any child, but has left a grandchild or grandchildren and no more remote descendant through a deceased grandchild, the property shall belong to his surviving grandchild if there is only one, or shall be equally divided among all his surviving grandchildren.

39. In like manner the property shall go to the surviving lineal descendants who are nearest in degree to the intestate, where they are all in the degree of great‑grandchildren to him, or are all in a more remote degree.

Distribution where there

are no lineal descendants:

42. If the intestate’s father is living, he shall succeed to the property.

43. If the intestate’s father is dead, but the intestate’s mother is living and there are also brothers or sisters of the intestate living, and there is no child living of any deceased brother or sister, the mother and each living brother or sister shall succeed to the property in equal shares.

44. If the intestate’s father is dead, but the intestate’s mo­ther is living, and if any brother or sister and the child or children of any brother or sister who may have died in the intestate’s lifetime are also living, then the mother and each living brother or sister, and the living child or children of each deceased brother or sister, shall be entitled to the property in equal shares, such children (if more than one) taking in equal shares only the shares which their respective parents would have taken if living at the intestate’s death.

45. If the intestate’s father is dead, but the intestate’s mother is living, and the brothers and sisters are all dead, but all or any of them have left children who survived the intestate, the mother and the child or children of each deceased brother or sister shall be entitled to the property in equal shares, such child­ren (if more than one) taking in equal shares only the shares which their respective parents would have taken if living at the intestate’s death.

46. If the intestate’s father is dead, but the intestate’s mother is living, and there is neither brother, nor sister, nor child of any brother or sister of the intestate, the property shall belong to the mother.

49. Where a distributive share in the property of a person who has died intestate is claimed by a child, or any descendant of a child, of such person, no money or other property which the intestate may, during his life, have paid, given or settled to, or for the advancement of, the child by whom or by whose descendant the claim is made shall be taken into account in estimating such distributive share.

50. For the purpose of intestate succession among Parsis:

  • there is no distinction between those who were actually born in the lifetime of a person deceased and those who at the date of his death were only conceived in the womb, but who have been subsequently born alive;
  • a lineal descendant of an intestate who has died in the lifetime of the intestate without leaving a widow or widower or any lineal descendant or a widow of any lineal descendant shall not be taken into account in determining the manner in which the property of which the intestate has died intestate shall be divided; and
  • where a widow of any relative of an intestate has married again in the lifetime of the intestate, she shall not be entitled to receive any share of the property of which the intestate has died intestate, and she shall be deemed not to be existing at the intestate’s death.

191.

  1. A man may dispose, by gift made in contemplation of death, of any movable property which he could dispose of by will.
  2. A gift said to be made in contemplation of death where a man, who is ill and expects to die shortly of his illness, delivers to another the possession of any movable property to keep as a gift in case the donor shall die of that illness.
  3. Such a gift may be resumed by the giver; and shall not take effect if he recovers from the illness during which it was made; nor if he survives the person to whom it was made.

192.

  1. If any person dies leaving property, movable or immoveable, any person claiming a right by succession thereto or to any portion thereof, may make application to the District Judge of the district where any part of the property is found or situate for relief, either after actual possession has been taken by another person, or when forcible means of seizing possession are apprehended.
  2. Any agent, relative or near friend, or the Court of Wards in cases within their cognizance, may, in the event of any minor, or any disqualified or absent person being entitled by succession to such property as aforesaid, make the like application for relief.
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