Laws of Succession (Part 1)

This lecture I'm giving you is about what happens if a person dies and leaves movable or immovable property. Movable property includes cash, jewellery that can be moved from one place to another, a car, these kinds of things, and immovable property includes things like a building, which cannot be moved. If a person dies, suppose Zaid dies. After Zaid dies, he has sons A, B, C, he has daughters X, Y, Z, he has a widow M. Now when he dies, suppose he has one property, a house. Now his heirs want this house to come into their names as heirs after his death, what's the procedure for this? It's quite a simple procedure: you hire a lawyer, if there are multiple immovable properties in more than one city. Wherever you live, and there's a property of the deceased there, you can file this case in that place, even if his other properties are in other cities. You're in Lahore, the deceased has one property in Lahore, one in Multan, one in Wahari, one in Sialkot, one in Faisalabad. You can file that suit in Lahore, keep this in mind. Now, to file a suit in Lahore, what do you need? You need to give your lawyer copies of your ID cards, you need to make the departments where these properties are located parties, if those departments are of the kind that say, you don't need to make us a party, just get us a declaration that you're the lawful heirs, and we'll transfer the deceased's property into your names, then you don't need to make any department a party. Departments that don't need to be made parties won't be made parties, those that do need to be made parties, that need to be a party to accept the declaration, then you need to make those departments parties, whichever properties are under their control, like Bahria Town, WAPDA Town, NESPAK, LDA, similarly housing societies, whichever of these need to be made parties, they'll be made parties, they'll hear us, they'll directly specify, then we'll act on this declaration. Now what's needed? 1. Copies of ID cards. 2. A copy of the deceased's death certificate. 3. Photocopies of however many properties he has, one, two, four, six, ten, you need to provide these to your lawyer. After this, if you don't want to hire a lawyer, you can formulate this suit yourself, titled Suit for Declaration, its structure for immovable properties is this: your first paragraph should state, sir, this party resides in this city and their addresses are exactly correct. First, you need to write the names of the parties one by one, the deceased's next of kin, those with no dispute among themselves, should be listed as plaintiffs. As defendants, first you need to make the general public a party, general public as defendant number two onward, if there are departments, or any of the deceased's next of kin, heirs, with whom you don't have good relations, make them defendants too, for example, three brothers, three sisters, one widow. Say three brothers aren't getting along, one brother, three sisters and the widow are on one side, two brothers aren't on speaking terms, then make those two brothers defendants, so that when they appear, if their position is negative, at least they'll disclose something. After this, give the title, Suit for Declaration, after giving the title: 1. The first paragraph should address the addresses, it's necessary to tell the court that the addresses given are absolutely correct. 2. The second paragraph should state that the deceased's name was this, the deceased died on this date, among the deceased's next of kin, heirs, these plaintiffs, and if there are any defendants, there are no other lawful heirs besides them. One line must be written that the deceased's mother and father have both already died, if they're alive, they need to be made parties, because they're also entitled to a share. 3. The deceased has these properties. 4. We approached the relevant departments, but they said, bring a declaration from the court regarding heirship, then your inheritance mutation will happen or this property will be transferred to your name as heir. 5. There's a cause-of-action paragraph, stating when the cause of action for this suit first arose. It first arose when the father, mother, or the deceased, whoever you're the heir of, died. It arose a second time when you went to the relevant department to have his mutation, inheritance mutation, done, and they said bring a declaration from the court. After this the cause of action has been continuing to this day, ongoing. 6. After this you need to write a paragraph that we, all the heirs, reside in this city, this property is also in this city, or one of all the properties is in this city, the deceased also died in this city. The cause of action for the suit also arose in this city, therefore this court has jurisdiction, this court has jurisdiction to resolve and decide this suit. At the end you need to write the suit's valuation, that the suit's valuation, for court fee purposes, this is a formal paragraph, in a declaration, the suit's valuation for inheritance purposes, you write two thousand rupees, and for any court, the fee is fixed such that no court fee applies to it. Let me tell you about court fees, court fees don't apply below a valuation of twenty-five thousand. Above twenty-five thousand, court fees apply, calculated at seven and a half percent. If the suit's valuation is two lakh rupees, your court fee at seven and a half percent will be fifteen thousand. But keep one thing in mind here: court fees will only go up to a maximum of fifteen thousand rupees, even if your suit's valuation is one billion rupees, your court fee will not exceed fifteen thousand. If any lawyer tells you your valuation is high so the court fee will be high, tell them about this lecture of mine, that the maximum court fee is fifteen thousand rupees. Seven and a half percent definitely applies, seven and a half percent definitely applies, but once seven and a half percent reaches fifteen thousand rupees, it's capped there. Court fees don't exceed fifteen thousand rupees, and a suit for declaration attracts no court fee, a family suit attracts a fifteen-rupee court fee, a guardianship suit attracts a fifteen-rupee fee. Keep these things in mind.