Q.1183 Property ownership

dispute resolution after divorce

Question: Dear Sirs My husband and his brother co owned a property in Delhi. His brother is an Indian citizen and my husband is an NRI. My husband bought his brother's share and rather than pay registeration costs the brother gifted him the property. There is a Will and power of Attorney. This was in 2009. I am getting divorced and now they claim that they still own the property 50:50 in spite of my husband having paid his brother his half of the property. I have both the original Will and Power of Attorney in my possession. His brother has settled in Australia but is not an Australian citizen yet. I know my husband owns it outright and has received rental from the property solely in his name. I have his Pan number too. I want to prove that the property is his name but in Will form and he has been given a Power of attorney by his brother. Please help with this matter.. Regards Answer: Power of Attorney documents can be revoked and disagreements over property ownership where power of attorney documents are used can lead to disputes that may take years to settle. Power of Attorney document that has not been registered may even be ignored by Indian courts. Your husband bought his brothers share of the joint property and failed to complete the registration process to avoid registration costs; as you state in your email. Lack of proper registration makes it difficult to prove that your husband is the only owner, considering that both brothers now say they own the property equally! What you need is a lawyer to evaluate the documents you hold and guide you accordingly on how to proceed in this matter. If due to a divorce your husband wants to minimize his assets, the onus would be on you to prove the full scope of his assets. Your options in my opinion are: 1. Hire a lawyer to seek professional advice and take the legal route. Lawyers who specialize in divorce cases will tell you that hiding assets to deny the other spouse his/her fair share of the property settlement is taken seriously by courts. 2. The other option that comes to mind is that you could come to a mutual understanding with your husband to distribute the assets and avoid a lengthy and costly legal dispute. Do keep in mind that civil legal disputes in Indian courts can be quite time consuming and costly. Where local Indian resident and Non-resident parties are concerned, the local resident will in my opinion have an advantage as non-residents cannot be physically present in India to attend court repeatedly. Sometimes lawyers may find it financial rewarding to keep extending the court process. The legal route should be considered as a last resort and after careful considerations of all other available options. The choice of course is yours!