# Succession certificate vs probate vs legal heir certificate **TL;DR:** Four documents get confused after a death in the family, and they do completely different jobs. A succession certificate, granted by a District Judge under Part X of the [Indian Succession Act, 1925](https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2385), lets you collect the deceased's debts and securities, meaning bank balances, fixed deposits, shares, and bonds. Probate is a court's certified stamp on a Will, granted only to the executor the Will names. Letters of administration are granted when there is no Will, or a Will with no usable executor. A legal heir certificate is a cheap revenue-office document, issued by the Tehsildar, used for pensions, provident fund, gratuity, and name changes. None of these four decides who owns the property. The Supreme Court has held that a succession certificate "does not establish a title of the grantee as the heir of the deceased." And a 2025 amendment quietly removed the old rule that made probate compulsory for many Wills. This guide tells you which document fits your situation, what it costs, and how long it takes. --- ## On this page - [The four documents, and why people confuse them](#the-four-documents-and-why-people-confuse-them) - [Succession certificate: for debts and securities](#succession-certificate-for-debts-and-securities) - [Probate: proving a Will in court](#probate-proving-a-will-in-court) - [Letters of administration: when no executor stands](#letters-of-administration-when-no-executor-stands) - [Legal heir certificate: pensions, PF, and government dues](#legal-heir-certificate-pensions-pf-and-government-dues) - [The four documents side by side](#the-four-documents-side-by-side) - [Which one do you actually need](#which-one-do-you-actually-need) - [The 2025 change that rewrote probate](#the-2025-change-that-rewrote-probate) - [Why a bank nominee is not the last word](#why-a-bank-nominee-is-not-the-last-word) - [Court fees, process, and timelines](#court-fees-process-and-timelines) - [How Niyam helps you sort succession paperwork](#how-niyam-helps-you-sort-succession-paperwork) - [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions) --- ## The four documents, and why people confuse them Someone dies. The bank wants paperwork before it releases the fixed deposit. The pension office wants something else. A relative says you need probate, the bank clerk says succession certificate, and a neighbour swears the Tehsildar's legal heir certificate is enough. All three are partly right and partly wrong, because each document answers a different question. Start with the split that actually matters. Two of these documents come from a civil court and two of them do not. A succession certificate, probate, and letters of administration are all granted by a District Judge under the Indian Succession Act, 1925. A legal heir certificate is an administrative paper issued by the revenue department, with no role under that Act at all. The second split is whether a Will exists. Probate is the route when there is a valid Will that names an executor. Letters of administration cover the gap, either a death with no Will, or a Will whose executor has died, refused, or was never named. A succession certificate sits to one side of the Will question entirely, because it deals only with collecting debts and securities, whether or not a Will exists. The reason families get this wrong is that the documents overlap in everyday use but not in law. A bank may accept a legal heir certificate for a small balance and demand a succession certificate for a larger one. A housing society may mutate a flat on a legal heir certificate when no one objects. The law sets the outer limits; institutions set their own comfort levels within them. Knowing the legal position lets you push back when an institution asks for more than the law requires, and warns you when it is asking for less than you actually need. One more thing to fix in your head before the detail. None of these four documents settles a dispute over who owns the estate. They are gateways and proofs of authority, not titles. If two claimants fight over the property itself, that is a separate civil suit. Hold that distinction and the rest falls into place. --- ## Succession certificate: for debts and securities A succession certificate is the document for money owed to the deceased. It is governed by Part X of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, which runs from Section 370 to Section 390. Under [Section 372](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/105862/), you apply to the District Judge, and the petition must set out the time of death, the deceased's ordinary residence, the family and relatives with their addresses, your right to claim, the absence of any legal impediment, and the exact debts and securities you want the certificate for. The petition is signed and verified the way a plaint is under the Code of Civil Procedure, so the discipline of pleadings applies here too, a topic covered in [the basics of civil procedure under the CPC](/blog/cpc-civil-procedure-basics). What the certificate covers is narrow and specific: debts and securities. That means bank deposits, fixed deposits, company shares, debentures, bonds, and the like. It does not cover immovable property, and it does not cover a flat or a plot of land. The point of the certificate is to let the holder collect those debts and to give the debtor, usually a bank, a valid discharge. Once the bank pays against a succession certificate, it is protected, even if a different heir later turns out to have a stronger claim. That protective design is the whole purpose, and the courts say so plainly. In [Banarsi Dass v. Teeku Dutta (2005)](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/505918/), the Supreme Court reiterated that a succession certificate "does not establish a title of the grantee as the heir of the deceased, but only furnishes them with authority to collect their debts and allows the debtors to make payments to them without incurring any risk." The case is also a useful reminder of how summary these proceedings are. The Court held that a DNA test cannot be ordered as a matter of routine in a succession certificate dispute, because the inquiry is about who may collect, not a full trial of paternity or title. There is a boundary you must respect. Under [Section 370](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1494917/), a succession certificate cannot be granted for any debt or security where the right has to be established by probate or letters of administration. In plain terms, if the asset is tied to a Will that needs proving, you go down the probate route, not the certificate route. The certificate is for the ordinary case where you simply need authority to gather the deceased's financial assets and the institutions holding them want court cover before they pay. The jurisdiction is geographic. You file before the District Judge within whose limits the deceased ordinarily resided at the time of death, or, if there was no fixed residence within any district, where some part of the property lies. Get the forum wrong and you lose weeks restarting elsewhere. --- ## Probate: proving a Will in court Probate is a court's certified confirmation that a Will is genuine and that the named executor may act on it. The Act defines it precisely. Under Section 2(f), probate is "the copy of a Will certified under the seal of a Court of competent jurisdiction with a grant of administration to the estate of the testator." So probate always presupposes a Will and an executor. Who can ask for it is tightly limited. Section 222 says probate is granted only to an executor appointed by the Will, whether the appointment is express or by necessary implication. If the Will names no executor, probate is not available to you, and you must instead seek letters of administration with the Will annexed. This is the most common reason a probate application gets redirected: a home-made Will that gives away everything but forgets to name anyone to carry it out. The court that grants probate is the District Judge. [Section 264](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1532074/) gives the District Judge jurisdiction to grant and revoke probate within the district, and the chartered High Courts exercise concurrent testamentary jurisdiction in their original side. The process is heavier than a succession certificate. The court issues citations, gives notice to those who might object, and where the Will is contested, the matter can turn into a full testamentary suit with evidence on the Will's execution and the testator's capacity. Here is the part most guides have not caught up with. For decades, probate was effectively compulsory for a defined class of Wills. Section 213 barred anyone from establishing a right as executor or legatee in court without first obtaining probate or letters of administration, and Section 57 fixed which Wills this caught: Wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains within the old presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, or Wills made elsewhere that dealt with immovable property situated in those towns. Courts read the two sections together. The Allahabad High Court, for instance, held that [probate is not required for a Hindu Will concerning property outside the Section 57(a) and (b) territories](https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/allahabad-high-court/allahabad-high-court-ruling-probate-of-will-requirement-section-57-indian-succession-act-309202). [Section 57](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/111809/) was, in effect, the switch that decided when a Will had to be probated. That switch has now been removed, which is the subject of a later section. The practical upshot today is that probate is no longer a blanket requirement, but it remains the safest path when a Will is likely to be challenged, when a financial institution insists on it, or when the estate is large and you want a court order that closes off later disputes. --- ## Letters of administration: when no executor stands Letters of administration are the court's grant of authority to administer an estate when probate is not available. There are two main situations. The first is intestacy, where the person died without a Will at all. The second is a Will that exists but cannot be executed by its own terms, because it names no executor, or the named executor has died, refused to act, or is legally incapable. In that second case the grant is called letters of administration with the Will annexed. For an intestate estate, the question of who gets the grant is answered by the succession law that applies to the deceased. Under Section 218, where a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain dies intestate, administration may be granted to any person who, under the rules for distributing that person's estate, would be entitled to the whole or part of it. So the grant follows inheritance. The people who would inherit are the people the court will appoint to administer. That is where the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 enters for most Hindu families. Under [Section 8](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1968317/), the property of a Hindu male dying intestate goes first to the Class I heirs in the Schedule, and only if there are none does it move to Class II, then agnates, then cognates. The Class I heirs include the son, daughter, widow, and mother, along with the children and widow of a predeceased son and similar branches. Section 10 then divides the estate so that the widow, the mother, and each son and daughter take an equal share. The [Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005](https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/1713) made daughters coparceners in their own right, a shift explained in [daughters' rights in ancestral property after 2005](/blog/daughters-ancestral-property-rights). Knowing the share is not academic. It decides who is entitled to the grant and who must be put on notice. Letters of administration give the administrator wider authority than a succession certificate. The administrator stands in for the deceased across the estate, not merely to collect a named list of debts. That breadth is why the grant carries a heavier process and, usually, an administration bond. If your need is only to release a bank deposit, a succession certificate is the lighter and faster tool. If you must administer a whole intestate estate with multiple assets and claimants, letters of administration are the right instrument. --- ## Legal heir certificate: pensions, PF, and government dues The legal heir certificate is the odd one out, and the most misunderstood. It is not granted by a court and it has no foundation in the Indian Succession Act. It is an administrative document issued by the revenue authorities, usually the Tehsildar or the Taluk office, that records who the surviving family members of the deceased are. Think of it as an official family tree for paperwork, not a determination of rights. Its uses are clerical and benefit-related. A legal heir certificate is what you produce to claim a family pension, to settle provident fund and gratuity dues, to transfer a utility connection into a survivor's name, to seek a compassionate appointment, and often to start property mutation in the municipal or revenue records. For most government and employer-facing tasks after a death, this is the first document the family is asked for, because it identifies the claimants quickly and cheaply. The cost and speed are the attraction. A legal heir certificate is typically issued in roughly 15 to 30 days, against a small fee, while a succession certificate from a court usually takes several months. That gap is exactly why families reach for the legal heir certificate first and only escalate to a court document when an institution refuses to accept it. But know its ceiling. A legal heir certificate does not authorise you to collect a disputed bank balance or transfer shares the way a succession certificate does, and it does not carry the legal weight of probate or letters of administration. Where a dispute exists among heirs, or a bank wants the protection of a court order before releasing a large sum, the revenue certificate will not do. As a rule of thumb that holds up in practice, the legal heir certificate handles the administrative and benefits side, while the succession certificate handles the financial and securities side. When the stakes are low and no one is fighting, the cheap document is enough. When money is large or contested, the court document is the one that sticks. --- ## The four documents side by side The cleanest way to keep these straight is to line them up against the questions an institution actually asks: who issues it, what law governs it, what it lets you do, and whether it touches a Will. | Feature | Succession certificate | Probate | Letters of administration | Legal heir certificate | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Issuing authority | District Judge (civil court) | District Judge / High Court | District Judge / High Court | Tehsildar / revenue office | | Governing law | Indian Succession Act, 1925, Part X (Sec 370 onwards) | Indian Succession Act, 1925 (Sec 222, 264) | Indian Succession Act, 1925 (Sec 218 onwards) | Administrative; no Succession Act basis | | Needs a Will? | ✗ Works with or without a Will | ✓ Requires a Will naming an executor | ✗ No Will, or Will with no usable executor | ✗ Not concerned with a Will | | Covers debts and securities | ✓ Yes, its core purpose | ✓ Through the executor | ✓ Through the administrator | ✗ Not for collecting disputed assets | | Covers full estate administration | ✗ No, debts and securities only | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | | Confers ownership or title | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✗ No | | Typical use | Release bank deposits, FDs, shares, bonds | Execute a contested or large Will | Administer an intestate estate | Pension, PF, gratuity, utility transfer, mutation | | Typical timeline | 3 to 12 months | 6 months and up, longer if contested | 6 months and up | 15 to 30 days | Two columns in that table do the heavy lifting. First, only the legal heir certificate comes from outside the court system, which is why it is fast and cheap but limited. Second, every single one of the four says ✗ under ownership. That is not a typo. None of these documents decides who owns the estate. They authorise, they prove, they administer. Title disputes go to a civil suit. --- ## Which one do you actually need Work it like a flowchart, starting from what you are trying to unlock. If you only need to release the deceased's bank deposits, fixed deposits, or investments, and the family is not fighting, try the legal heir certificate first, because it is fast and the institution may accept it for modest amounts. If the bank refuses or the sum is large, you escalate to a succession certificate, which is built precisely for collecting debts and securities and gives the bank the discharge it wants. If you are claiming a family pension, provident fund, gratuity, or a compassionate appointment, the legal heir certificate is almost always the right and sufficient document, because these are administrative claims handled by employers and government offices that ask for proof of who the heirs are, not a court grant. If there is a Will and it names an executor, your route is probate, especially where the Will is large, likely to be challenged, or where a bank or registrar insists on a court grant before acting. If there is a Will but no executor who can act, you seek letters of administration with the Will annexed instead. If there is no Will at all and you must deal with the whole estate, not just one bank account, letters of administration are the instrument, with entitlement decided by the succession law that applies to the deceased, such as the Hindu Succession Act for Hindus. And if heirs are in open conflict over who owns what, none of these four documents resolves it. You need a partition suit or a declaratory suit on title. The grant only tells the world who may collect or administer in the meantime. Before you rely on any precedent you find while preparing, [check that the judgment is still good law](/blog/good-law-checking), because succession rulings get refined often and an overruled case will sink an argument. --- ## The 2025 change that rewrote probate If you read older guides, you will see them treat probate as compulsory for a large class of Wills. That advice is now out of date, and it matters. For nearly a century, Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act blocked anyone from establishing a right as executor or legatee in court without first obtaining probate or letters of administration, in the cases Section 57 caught. The [Repealing and Amending Act, 2025](https://www.barandbench.com/view-point/omission-of-section-213-of-the-indian-succession-act-1925-seeking-probate-of-will-is-no-longer-mandatory), which received presidential assent on 20 December 2025, omitted Section 213 entirely. It also deleted the references to Section 213 from Section 3(1) and amended Section 370 to cut the link between proving a right and that section. The blanket statutory bar that made probate a precondition for many Wills is gone. That does not mean probate is now pointless. Writing in Bar and Bench, Ishwar Ahuja, Partner at Saga Legal, and his co-author note that probate "is no longer mandatory but remains necessary in disputed wills, complex estates, and situations involving financial institutions." The firm S.S. Rana & Co. described the change as [a long overdue reform of Section 213](https://ssrana.in/articles/a-long-overdue-reform-repeal-of-section-213-of-the-indian-succession-act-1925/), removing a requirement that had long forced beneficiaries through an extra court step even where no one contested the Will. The practical takeaway is a shift in default. The old default for a presidency-town Hindu Will was: get probate or you cannot enforce the Will. The new default is: probate is optional, and you obtain it when it buys you something, such as finality against a likely challenge, or because a registrar or bank still asks for it. When you write about this change or cite the amending Act, get the neutral citation and statutory references right, as set out in [how to cite Indian judgments and statutes](/blog/how-to-cite-indian-judgments). The reform is recent enough that many institutions have not updated their checklists, so expect a lag between what the law now permits and what the counter clerk demands. --- ## Why a bank nominee is not the last word A common and expensive misunderstanding is that a nominee on a bank account, fixed deposit, demat account, or mutual fund becomes the owner of that asset on death. They do not, and the Supreme Court has settled this. In [Shakti Yezdani v. Jayanand Jayant Salgaonkar (2023)](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/166607072/), reported as 2023 INSC 1076 and decided on 14 December 2023, the Court held that nomination under the Companies Act, 1956 and the Depositories Act, 1996 does not create a separate mode of succession and does not override the laws of inheritance. The nominee receives the asset as a trustee or custodian, to hold for the legal heirs, not as the absolute owner. The dispute in that case arose over fixed deposits and mutual fund investments with named nominees, and the Court came down firmly on the side of succession over nomination. The consequence for ordinary families is direct. A nominee can receive payment from the bank, which discharges the bank, but the money still belongs to whoever inherits under the deceased's succession law or Will. If the heirs and the nominee are the same people, no problem arises. If they differ, the heirs can require the nominee to account for the asset, and the nominee cannot keep it merely because their name sat in the nomination box. This is exactly why a succession certificate or a grant still matters even when nominations are in place. The nominee route gets the money out of the institution quickly, but it does not decide entitlement. Where the heirs are not identical to the nominees, or where the heirs themselves need a clean instrument to divide the asset, the court document remains the document that determines who is actually entitled to collect and keep. Treat the nominee as a receiver, not an owner, and you will avoid a fight later. --- ## Court fees, process, and timelines Money and time are where these documents diverge most, so plan around both. Court fees on a succession certificate are ad valorem, meaning they scale with the value of the debts and securities you list. The fee is charged under the [Court Fees Act, 1870](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/138097064/) and its state amendments, and it is commonly in the range of two to three per cent of the value of the assets, with several states capping the maximum fee. Because the percentage and the cap are set by each state, the same fixed deposit can attract a different fee in different states, so check your state's schedule before you file. Probate and letters of administration carry court fees on a similar ad valorem basis tied to the value of the estate, which is why a large estate makes the court route noticeably more expensive than a revenue certificate. The succession certificate process runs through the District Court. After you file the Section 372 petition, the court satisfies itself on the grounds, then typically issues a public notice inviting objections, often through a newspaper, with a window for anyone to come forward, commonly around 45 days in practice. If no one objects, the certificate is granted. If someone does, the matter is contested and slows down. Realistically, an uncontested succession certificate takes three to twelve months depending on the court's docket, and a contested one takes longer. Probate and letters of administration follow a comparable court timeline, often six months or more, and far longer if the Will is challenged and the case becomes a testamentary suit. If you miss a deadline or need the court to excuse a delay along the way, the principles in [condonation of delay](/blog/condonation-of-delay) will matter to keep the application alive. The legal heir certificate, by contrast, is the quick one: roughly 15 to 30 days from the revenue office, at a nominal fee. A practical sequencing tip. Apply for the legal heir certificate immediately, because pensions and PF cannot wait and it is cheap. In parallel, assess whether any asset truly needs a court grant. Many families never need a succession certificate at all, because the legal heir certificate plus bank formalities clear the smaller accounts. Reserve the court route for the assets and disputes that genuinely require it. If you want a single place to compare these instruments at a glance against your own facts, the [comparison view](/compare) lays the differences out side by side. --- ## How Niyam helps you sort succession paperwork Succession is a field where the right answer depends on small facts: the religion of the deceased, whether a Will exists, where they lived, what the asset is, and which state's court fee schedule applies. A wrong turn, asking for a succession certificate when the asset needs letters of administration, or chasing probate for a Will the 2025 amendment no longer requires it for, costs months. The work of getting it right is research work, finding the controlling provision and the latest case, and confirming it still holds. That is what [Niyam](https://app.niyam.ai/register) is built for. Ask a plain-English question, such as "is probate still mandatory for a Hindu Will in Mumbai" or "can a nominee keep a fixed deposit against the legal heirs," and Niyam answers with the relevant Indian statutes and judgments, every proposition cited to a real source you can open and read. For background on how grounded, source-linked research differs from a generic chatbot guess, see [AI legal research in India](/blog/ai-legal-research-india). Indian succession law moves, the Section 213 omission is proof of that, so the standard is to work from current statute and good law, not from a half-remembered rule. Niyam holds itself to that standard: real provisions, real cases, links you can verify. ### Start for ₹100 Try Niyam on your next succession question. For ₹100 you get credits to run real research grounded in Indian statutes and judgments, with every answer cited to a source you can read. [Create your account and start for ₹100](https://app.niyam.ai/register). --- ## Frequently asked questions **What is the difference between a succession certificate and a legal heir certificate?** A succession certificate is granted by a District Judge under the Indian Succession Act, 1925 and authorises you to collect the deceased's debts and securities, such as bank deposits, fixed deposits, and shares. A legal heir certificate is issued by the revenue office, usually the Tehsildar, and simply records who the surviving family members are, for use in pension, provident fund, gratuity, and utility transfer claims. The certificate is the court document for money; the legal heir certificate is the administrative document for benefits. **Does a succession certificate give me ownership of the property?** No. In Banarsi Dass v. Teeku Dutta (2005), the Supreme Court reiterated that a succession certificate does not establish title as heir, but only gives authority to collect debts and lets debtors pay without risk. Ownership disputes are decided in a separate civil suit, not in the certificate proceeding. **When do I need probate instead of a succession certificate?** You need probate when there is a valid Will naming an executor and you want the court to certify the Will so the executor can act on it. A succession certificate cannot be granted, under Section 370, for any debt or security where the right has to be proved by probate or letters of administration. In short, probate is the Will route, the certificate is the debts-and-securities route. **Is probate still compulsory in India?** Not as a blanket rule. The Repealing and Amending Act, 2025, which got presidential assent on 20 December 2025, omitted Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, which had made probate or letters of administration a precondition for establishing rights under many Wills. Probate is now optional but still advisable for disputed Wills, large or complex estates, and where a bank or registrar insists on it. **What is the difference between probate and letters of administration?** Probate is granted to the executor named in a Will, under Section 222. Letters of administration are granted when there is no Will, or when a Will exists but has no usable executor, in which case it is letters of administration with the Will annexed. Both let the holder administer the whole estate; the difference is whether a Will and a named executor exist. **Who can apply for letters of administration when someone dies without a Will?** Under Section 218, when a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain dies intestate, administration may be granted to a person who would be entitled to the estate under the applicable succession rules. For a Hindu male, that is decided by Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, which gives the estate first to Class I heirs such as the son, daughter, widow, and mother. **Which document do I need for a family pension?** A legal heir certificate is usually the right document for a family pension, provident fund, gratuity, and compassionate appointment. These are administrative claims processed by the employer or government office, which need proof of who the heirs are rather than a court grant. **How long does a succession certificate take?** Typically three to twelve months for an uncontested application, and longer if someone objects. After you file under Section 372, the court issues a public notice inviting objections, often through a newspaper, before granting the certificate. A legal heir certificate, by contrast, is usually issued in about 15 to 30 days. **How much are the court fees for a succession certificate?** The fee is ad valorem under the Court Fees Act, 1870 and state amendments, commonly in the range of two to three per cent of the value of the debts and securities, with several states capping the maximum. Because the rate and cap vary by state, check your state's schedule before filing. **Is a bank nominee the owner of the money after death?** No. In Shakti Yezdani v. Jayanand Jayant Salgaonkar (2023 INSC 1076), the Supreme Court held that nomination does not override succession law. The nominee receives the asset as a custodian for the legal heirs, who remain entitled to it. The nominee can collect from the bank, which discharges the bank, but cannot keep the asset against the heirs. **Can I use a legal heir certificate to withdraw a large bank balance?** Often not. Banks tend to accept a legal heir certificate for small or undisputed amounts but ask for a succession certificate for larger sums or where heirs disagree, because the court certificate protects the bank when it pays. If the bank refuses the legal heir certificate, the succession certificate is the document designed for that situation. **Which court grants a succession certificate?** The District Judge, under Part X of the Indian Succession Act, within whose limits the deceased ordinarily resided at the time of death, or where part of the property lies if there was no fixed residence within any district. Filing in the wrong court wastes time, so confirm the forum before you file. **Does a succession certificate cover immovable property like a house?** No. A succession certificate is limited to debts and securities, meaning movable financial assets such as deposits, shares, and bonds. For immovable property you rely on the Will and probate or letters of administration, on mutation through revenue records, and where there is a dispute, on a civil suit for partition or declaration of title. **What law decides the shares of heirs in an intestate Hindu estate?** The Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Section 8 sets the order of heirs for a male dying intestate, giving the estate first to Class I heirs, and Section 10 divides it so that the widow, the mother, and each son and daughter take an equal share. The 2005 amendment made daughters coparceners with the same rights as sons.