Facts about Ancestral Property

Property, being a costly asset, has often been at the epicentre of disputes. There are many reasons for a surge in such quarrels, including greed and ignorance. Many a time, people go to court because they don’t know the nuances of law and hence their rights.

Magicbricks collates 11 facts about Ancestral Property that you must know:

1. Property inherited up to four generations of male lineage, which means father, grandfather, great grandfather and great-great grandfather is called ancestral property. It should have remained undivided till the fourth generation upwards.

2. Unlike other forms of inheritance, where inheritance opens only on the death of the owner, any right to a share in such a property accrues by birth itself.

3. Ancestral property could include self-acquired property as well. This is a matter that is determined on the basis of facts and circumstances of a case.

4. Any property divided through a partition deed, family arrangement, etc. loses its ancestral character. "The pre-requisite is that the property should not have been divided by the users in the Hindu undivided family as once a division of the property takes place, the share or portion which each coparcener gets after the division becomes his or her self-acquired property," says Hardeep Sachdeva, senior partner, AZB & Partners. The Supreme Court in 2016 has given a judgment to the effect that any property which has been previously partitioned or which has been distributed in accordance with Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, on principles of intestacy ceases to be joint family property and no suit for partition can lie in respect to such property.

5. The rights in ancestral property are determined per stripes and not per capita. This means that the share of each generation is first determined and the successive generations’ share in turn is sub-divided. Each generation inherits from its predecessors.

6. Properties inherited from mother, grandmother, uncle and even brother is not ancestral property.

7. Property inherited through Will and Gift are not ancestral properties.

8. Self-acquired property can become ancestral property if it is thrown into the pool of ancestral properties and enjoyed in common.

9. Property gifted by a father to his son cannot not become ancestral property in the hands of the son simply by reason of the fact that he got it from his father.

10. In 2005, daughters too got a right in ancestral property. Clarifying later, the Supreme Court had said that a daughter's right to ancestral property does not arise if the father died before the amendment of the Hindu law came into force in 2005.

11. With respect to the property law, a son may be disinherited from the self-acquired property of the father, but he will still have equal rights over the ancestral or the coparcenary property of the Hindu Undivided Family.

Source - ETRealty