There’s one piece of financial planning almost everyone gets to “later.” Not because it’s hard, but because it means picturing a world you’re not in. So the will never gets written, the nominee never gets updated, and the whole subject stays comfortably in the “someday” pile.
For an NRI, that gap is bigger than you think — because your money doesn’t live in one country, your family may be spread across two or three, and the laws that decide where everything goes are different in each. The good news: you don’t need to solve all of it today. You just need to stop avoiding it. Here’s what actually matters.
“But I’ve named a nominee”
This is the single most common — and most expensive — misunderstanding we see.
In India, a nominee is not the person who inherits your money. A nominee is essentially a caretaker: the bank or fund hands the assets to them, but legally they’re only holding it on behalf of your legal heirs. If your nominee and your intended heirs aren’t the same people, or your wishes differ from what succession law assumes, you’ve set up confusion and potential conflict — not a clean handover.
Naming a nominee is useful. But it is not a substitute for a will. Only a will actually says who gets what.
“My family will just sort it out”
Without a will, your assets are distributed by default succession law — and “default” rarely matches what you’d have chosen. The process is slow, often takes months or years, can be expensive, and has a way of turning grieving families into disputing ones.
For expats in the UAE there’s an extra wrinkle many don’t realise: for a non-Muslim expat who dies without a properly registered will, local default rules can apply to UAE-based assets and bank accounts — potentially distributing them in ways you never intended, and freezing accounts in the meantime. A registered will (for example through the dedicated expat wills registries) is what keeps that in your control.
The cross-border wrinkle
Here’s where NRIs specifically get caught: you might have a flat and investments in India, a bank account and savings in the UAE, and maybe assets elsewhere. One will written for one country may not cleanly cover assets in another — and a single document trying to cover everything can create conflicts between jurisdictions.
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs deliberate handling, not a downloaded template. Often it means coordinated wills — one for each jurisdiction where you hold meaningful assets — written so they work together, not against each other.
What to actually do
You don’t need to resolve everything at once. Start here:
- Write down every asset and where it sits — accounts, properties, investments, insurance, in each country. You can’t plan for what you haven’t listed.
- Check your nominations are current — on every bank account, investment, and insurance policy. Old nominees (an ex-spouse, a late parent) cause real damage.
- Make a will — properly, per jurisdiction. For cross-border assets, get this done by someone who handles exactly that; it’s not a DIY job.
- Tell someone it exists. A perfect will nobody can find helps no one. One trusted person should know it exists and how to access it.
- Revisit after big changes — marriage, a child, a new property, a move.
None of this is morbid. It’s the opposite — it’s the part of wealth planning that’s purely about protecting the people you did all the earning for.
Sigma Wealth is an independent wealth advisory firm based in Bur Dubai, UAE. We provide research-backed, commission-free financial guidance — you retain full control of your funds at all times. This article is for general educational purposes and is not personalised investment, tax or legal advice; for wills and succession, always work with a qualified legal professional.
Want help mapping your assets and getting your succession plan in order? Book a consultation — we’ll help you see the full picture and connect you with the right legal specialists.