As featured in
A second marriage is a common life event for NRIs — sometimes following divorce, sometimes following widowhood. Each situation has specific estate-planning consequences under Indian law, and each requires specific attention in your NRI Will. Here is the framework.
Under section 70 of the Indian Succession Act 1925, a Will is revoked by the testator's subsequent marriage — except that Muslim Wasiyats are not affected. For a Hindu, Christian, or Parsi NRI who remarries, any prior Will is automatically revoked.
This is a critical rule that catches many people off guard. If you had a Will drafted before your second marriage and did not update it after the wedding, you are now legally treating as if you died intestate — and your intestate defaults may not match your wishes at all.
Practical response: draft a new Will within 90 days of remarriage. The Online Will (₹5,000) or Personalised Will (₹25,000) both work for this purpose.
If you are divorced from your first spouse, the divorce itself terminates the marriage-based inheritance rights. A former spouse is not a legal heir (unless specifically named as beneficiary in a new Will).
However: if the divorce is not yet final, or if you and your first spouse have merely separated without formal divorce, the first spouse retains marital status and heir rights. Bigamy under Hindu personal law (and Indian criminal law) is void — a second 'marriage' during a subsisting first marriage is not a legal marriage at all.
For Muslims: polygamy is permitted under Muslim personal law (up to four wives). Each wife has inheritance rights under Muslim personal law. A subsequent marriage does not revoke a Muslim Will and does not extinguish the first wife's rights.
For NRIs married under the Special Marriage Act 1954: this is a monogamous framework. A second marriage without divorcing the first is void.
A validly-married second spouse has the same inheritance rights as any first spouse: Class I heir under Hindu law, Quranic share under Muslim law, section-32-49 ISA share under Christian law.
If both marriages are valid (Muslim polygamy context), both wives are heirs with their respective shares. Wills need careful drafting to be consistent with Quranic entitlements.
For most NRI second marriages (Hindu, Christian, Parsi under monogamous frameworks), the second spouse steps into the shoes of the first — provided the divorce or death of the first spouse preceded the remarriage. The Will should explicitly acknowledge the second spouse as the current spouse and address the children from both marriages.
Children from the first marriage retain their inheritance rights from you. Remarriage does not extinguish parent-child inheritance. Your children from your first marriage remain Class I heirs (Hindu), Quranic heirs (Muslim), or ISA heirs (Christian/Parsi).
This is where NRI Wills involving second marriages get complex. If you die intestate, your Class I heirs include your current spouse, all your children (both marriages), and possibly your mother. The intestate default splits the estate among all of them.
If your intention is to provide more heavily for one branch than another (e.g., to provide for the second spouse and her children while ensuring the first marriage children receive a specific inheritance), the Will must say so explicitly.
Children from the second marriage have the same inheritance rights as first-marriage children. There is no 'step' distinction in Indian succession law — all your biological (and legally adopted) children are equally heirs.
This can create tension. If the second spouse has children from her prior marriage (your step-children who are not adopted by you), those step-children are NOT your legal heirs. They inherit from you only if you specifically bequeath to them in your Will.
A common NRI second-marriage estate structure: the second spouse and her children (from prior marriage) live in the family home, receive term-insurance proceeds, and inherit specific bequests; the first-marriage children receive specified inheritance shares that give them financial security. The Will articulates this explicitly.
For NRI second marriages where the family blend is complex — first-marriage children, second-marriage biological children, second-spouse's children from prior marriage, potentially all living in different countries — a testamentary trust is often the right structure.
The trust holds the residuary. The surviving spouse has a life interest (income during life). On the spouse's death, corpus divides among specified children per the Will's terms. This provides for the spouse without prematurely distributing corpus.
This is Personalised Will (₹25,000) or Succession Planning (₹1,00,000) territory. Testamentary trust construction is beyond the Online Will's scope.
For NRIs entering a second marriage with substantial assets and children from a prior marriage, a pre-marriage agreement (though legally enforceable in India only to limited extent) can articulate expectations about separate property, joint property, and inheritance provisions.
This is often paired with parallel Wills executed shortly after the marriage. The pre-marriage discussion clarifies each spouse's understanding; the Wills operationalise the understanding.
For NRI couples where one or both have significant estates, this is worth the advocate consultation to structure properly. This is Personalised Will minimum, and often Succession Planning.
A second marriage as an NRI requires a fresh look at estate planning. Do not assume the old Will still works — under section 70 ISA, it typically does not. Update your Will, coordinate nominations, and address the specific complexity of children from both marriages.
For blended families with substantial estates, this is not Online Will territory. It is Personalised Will (₹25,000) minimum, and often Succession Planning (₹1,00,000).
This is general legal information, not legal advice. For your specific NRI second-marriage estate planning, consult a Law Tarazoo advocate.
Start with the ₹5,000 Online Will — advocate-reviewed, delivered in your inbox in 30 minutes. Or book a 60-minute Personalised consult at ₹25,000.
Start My Will →
