Your father has died and the heirs live in four countries. Where do you start?
The order of the steps decides whether an estate takes three months or three years. A practical sequence for families spread across the UK, Europe, North America and the Gulf.
Inheritance · By Khalil Ahmad Bhullah, Founding Partner · 22 September 2026 · Pakistani law only
When a parent dies in Pakistan and the children live abroad, the estate usually stalls for one of two reasons: nobody knows which office to start with, or one relative is already in possession and everyone else is being polite about it.
The sequence below is the one we use, and it works whether the family is agreed or not.
Step one: records, not lawyers
Two documents decide the speed of everything else. The death certificate registered with the Union Council, and a current Family Registration Certificate from NADRA showing every legal heir. Most rejected applications we see fail here: a child missing from the family record, a name spelled differently on a NICOP, a second marriage never registered.
Step two: list every asset by the office that transfers it
An estate is not one transfer, it is several. Agricultural land moves by inheritance mutation at the Arazi Record Centre. A society plot moves on the society or development authority file. Bank accounts, shares and vehicles each need the certificate presented to a different institution. Listing them at the start prevents the common outcome where the house is transferred and a bank account sits frozen for years.
Step three: the NADRA route, if the family agrees
Uncontested succession certificates and letters of administration no longer require a court case. They are issued through NADRA’s Succession Facilitation Units. The heirs authorise one applicant, the application is published for objections, and the certificate issues if none are raised. Heirs living abroad verify biometrically through the Pak ID app, and since August 2025 the application can be filed at any NADRA centre, regardless of where the property is.
Step four: the court, if it does not
NADRA declines applications where there is a dispute or a gap in the record, and those come to court under the Succession Act, 1925, alongside suits for declaration and partition where a share is being withheld.
One point worth knowing before a family negotiation begins: depriving a woman of inherited property by deceit or coercion is a criminal offence under section 498-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, and Punjab also allows a complaint to the Ombudsperson under its women’s property rights law. Brothers who assume that sisters abroad will not act tend to reconsider at that point.
What the shares actually are
For a Muslim estate, the shares are fixed by Islamic law under the West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1962. A will can pass no more than one-third, and only to people who are not heirs, unless the other heirs consent after death. A lifetime gift — hiba — with declaration, acceptance and delivery of possession, properly registered and mutated, is the real planning tool, and the one parents abroad most often ask us about.
A bank nomination is not a substitute. A nominee generally holds the money for all the legal heirs rather than owning it.
The full process is on our inheritance and succession page.
Questions we get on this.
Usually no. The application is started in Pakistan by one heir or an attorney, and heirs abroad verify biometrically through the Pak ID app. A contested matter may need evidence, which courts increasingly take by video link.
Not the shares, but it changes the case. Occupation by one heir against the others is dealt with by partition and possession proceedings alongside the succession work. See our property disputes page.
It runs on a published objection period rather than a court diary, so an uncontested application is measured in weeks rather than years. Incomplete family records are the usual cause of delay.