An NRI or OCI cardholder may inherit any immovable property in India, including agricultural land, plantation property and a farm house — the very categories that cannot be purchased. The property may be held and its income received; selling agricultural land, however, is generally possible only to a person resident in India.
Which law governs the succession depends on the deceased's personal law, and whether they left a will. A registered will shortens everything. Without one, heirs must establish their claim through a legal heir certificate or a succession certificate, and every heir abroad must be brought into the process — usually by power of attorney.
The step most families skip is mutation: getting the municipal and revenue records changed into the heirs' names. Until that is done, the property cannot be sold or mortgaged, and the delay is measured in years, not months.
An inherited property that is later sold is taxed on the sale like any other, and the buyer must still deduct on the whole sale price rather than on the gain — which on an inherited flat is usually most of it.
What the buyer has to deduct, and the gap it leaves
- India levies no inheritance or estate duty, but the country you live in may.
- A will covering Indian assets, registered in India, is worth its cost many times over.
- Mutation of records is the practical bottleneck, not the succession law.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, FAQ Purchase of Immovable Property, updated 6 April 2023. Inheritance is Rule 24(c) of the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019, and it covers any immovable property — which is why it is the one route open where a purchase is not. FEMA governs the holding, not the succession: who inherits is decided by the personal law that applied to the deceased, or by a valid will. India has levied no estate duty since 1985, but the country you live in may tax the same inheritance. Checked 20 September 2026.