The Property That Sat Empty for Four Years Because No One Had Power of Attorney
An NRI in Dubai inherits a flat in Ahmedabad, sells nothing, changes nothing, and by the time it needs attention, four years have passed and the paperwork trail has gone cold. This isn’t a rare story. It’s what happens by default when Indian assets are left unattended from abroad, not because of neglect, but because distance quietly makes even routine tasks difficult.
A registered Power of Attorney is usually the first gap that shows up. Without one, an NRI has to be physically present in India for property transactions, bank formalities, or even simple maintenance decisions, which isn’t realistic for someone visiting once a year. A properly drafted and registered PoA, given to someone genuinely trustworthy, turns a task requiring a flight into one that can be handled over a phone call. It needs to be specific about what powers it grants, not a vague blanket document that either does too little or invites misuse.
Property records need periodic checking even when nothing is being bought or sold. Encroachment, unauthorised occupation, and disputed mutation entries tend to surface exactly when a property has gone unvisited for years, and by the time an NRI notices, the fix is far more expensive than the prevention would have been. Advisors at Ashutosh Financial Services generally recommend an annual title and physical status check for any Indian property held from abroad, regardless of whether it’s occupied or vacant.
Nomination and joint holding on bank accounts, demat accounts, and mutual fund folios matter more for NRIs than for resident investors, simply because the practical difficulty of establishing legal heirship from another country is significantly higher. An asset without a nominee doesn’t disappear, but it becomes considerably harder to access for whoever is entitled to it later. Ashutosh Financial Services routinely flags missing nominations as one of the most fixable gaps in NRI portfolios, precisely because fixing it takes minutes and ignoring it costs months.
None of this requires constant attention from abroad. It requires a system that doesn’t depend on physical presence to function. Ashutosh Financial Services continues to help NRI families set up exactly this kind of oversight through its ongoing advisory and awareness initiatives.
