NRI Property Consulting

Yes. NRIs and OCI cardholders are permitted to acquire residential and commercial property in India under FEMA's general permission route — no case-by-case RBI approval is required. The general permission does not extend to agricultural land, plantation property, or a farmhouse, which can only be acquired by inheritance or gift from a person who was already eligible to hold them, not by direct purchase.

Not under the same general permission route available to NRIs and OCI cardholders. A foreign national who is not of Indian origin falls under a more restrictive FEMA regime, generally requiring specific RBI approval or falling within narrowly defined approved categories, even where the spouse is an Indian citizen. Obtaining OCI status, where eligible through the marriage, is the route most spouses pursue before acquiring property directly.

A Power of Attorney (PoA) is a legal instrument authorising a named person in India to act on your behalf — signing documents, appearing before the Sub-Registrar, collecting possession, managing tenancy — without you being physically present. For a UAE-based NRI, the PoA is what makes remote transacting possible at all. A PoA that is vaguely worded, missing the specific powers a Sub-Registrar's office expects for that exact transaction type, or executed through an attestation route that is not accepted, is rejected at the registration counter — often on the day of closing, when there is no time left to fix it.

Two routes are commonly used. The first is execution before, and attestation by, the Indian Consulate or Embassy in the UAE — this is generally the most straightforward and widely accepted route. The second is execution before a UAE notary, followed by legalisation through the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then attestation by the Indian Embassy. Once the PoA reaches India, if it is a General Power of Attorney being used for a sale transaction, it typically also needs to be adjudicated and stamped within India within a prescribed period of its receipt there before it can be relied upon in a registrable transaction.

Section 195 of the Income-tax Act applies to NRI sellers rather than the flat 1% Section 194-IA rate that applies to resident sellers. Under Section 195, the buyer must deduct TDS on the entire sale consideration — not just the capital gain — broadly at rates around 12.5% plus applicable surcharge and cess for long-term gains, and at slab-linked rates up to 30% plus surcharge and cess for short-term gains, with no minimum sale-value threshold below which deduction is skipped. This routinely results in the buyer withholding far more than the seller's actual tax liability, since the buyer has no visibility into the seller's original cost of acquisition.

Under Section 197 of the Income-tax Act, a seller can apply to the jurisdictional Assessing Officer (International Taxation) for a certificate authorising the buyer to deduct TDS at a lower rate, or nil, based on the actual computed capital gain rather than the full sale consideration. The application, Form 13, requires a complete computation of the expected gain supported by cost documentation, and should be filed well before the transaction is due to close, since processing takes time.

Yes, subject to RBI's remittance framework. Sale proceeds credited to your NRO account can generally be repatriated up to USD 1 million per financial year, inclusive of all other remittances made from NRO balances during that year, and subject to a cap generally limited to the sale proceeds of up to two residential properties over an NRI's lifetime for full repatriation purposes. Before an Authorised Dealer bank will process the remittance, a Form 15CB certificate from a Chartered Accountant and the corresponding Form 15CA filed on the income tax portal are required, confirming applicable tax has been paid or provided for.

First, establish clear legal title in your name (or jointly with other heirs) — through a registered will if one exists, or through a succession certificate or legal heirship certificate where there is no will. Second, ensure the property record is mutated with the local municipal or revenue authority to reflect the new ownership. Third, gather the original owner's cost-of-acquisition documentation, since under Section 49 of the Income-tax Act, the cost of acquisition for capital gains purposes on an eventual sale is the cost to the previous owner, not the property's value on the date of inheritance.

Co-owners can either hold the property jointly, partition it formally through a registered partition deed if it is physically divisible, or one or more co-owners can sell their undivided share to another co-owner or a third party with the consent (or a formal release/relinquishment deed) of the others. Where heirs cannot agree, the matter may require civil partition proceedings, which is a litigation track PNPC would coordinate with specialised litigation counsel rather than handle directly as a transactional matter.

We review the project's RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Authority) registration status, the promoter's compliance history and any pending complaints on the relevant state RERA portal, the sanctioned building plan against what is being marketed, the payment schedule against construction milestones, and the specific clauses in the builder's agreement covering delay compensation, cancellation, and refund. An unregistered or lapsed RERA project, or an agreement with weak delay-compensation terms, materially changes the risk profile of the purchase.

Yes. Rental income from Indian property is fully taxable in India regardless of where the owner lives — NRI status does not exempt Indian rental income. You are entitled to a standard 30% deduction against the gross annual rental value under Section 24(a), and if there is an outstanding home loan on the property, interest paid is deductible under Section 24(b). The net income is added to your total Indian income and taxed at applicable slab rates, with tenants above a prescribed rent threshold required to deduct TDS under Section 195.

Yes. Indian banks and housing finance companies extend home loans to NRIs, subject to the RBI's applicable directions and the individual lender's eligibility criteria — typically including income documentation from your UAE employer, a co-applicant or guarantor requirement in some cases, and disbursement directly to the seller or builder rather than to the NRI's own account. Loan tenure and loan-to-value ratios for NRI applicants sometimes differ from resident-borrower norms.

An Encumbrance Certificate (EC) is an official record issued by the Sub-Registrar's office showing all registered transactions against a specific property over a defined period — sales, mortgages, gifts, leases exceeding a certain term, and any registered charges. It is the primary tool for confirming the seller's clear title and the absence of an existing, undischarged mortgage or other registered claim on the property. A property with an unresolved mortgage or a registered dispute will show up here even when the seller's own representations suggest a clean title.

A properly drafted and attested Power of Attorney allows your appointed representative — often a family member, or in some structures a professional nominee coordinated by PNPC — to appear before the Sub-Registrar and complete registration on your behalf. PNPC's India-based team reviews the final documents before execution, coordinates with the PoA holder on the registration appointment, and confirms the executed documents match what was agreed, even though you are not physically present.

A Special Power of Attorney (SPA) is limited to a specific, defined transaction or act — for example, authorising the sale of one named property only. A General Power of Attorney (GPA) grants broader authority across multiple acts or an ongoing relationship. For most one-off property transactions, PNPC recommends a Special Power of Attorney scoped precisely to the transaction at hand, since it is generally more readily accepted at registration and limits the representative's authority to exactly what is intended.

Repatriation of sale proceeds is capped, broadly, at the foreign-exchange equivalent of the original purchase consideration where the property was bought using foreign remittance or NRE/FCNR funds, and is further subject to the overall USD 1 million per financial year NRO repatriation ceiling (inclusive of any other remittances made in that year) and a cap generally limited to the proceeds of up to two residential properties over your lifetime for full repatriation purposes. Any surplus above these limits typically remains in the NRO account, though it can still be used within India or repatriated in a later financial year within the applicable annual ceiling.

At minimum: passport and Emirates ID, PAN card, OCI/PIO card if applicable, details of the specific property (address, survey/plot number, or under-construction project name), and, for a sale, the original purchase deed and any prior title documents you hold. For a purchase, we also need your intended funding source and, where a PoA will be used, your representative's details in India.

Stamp duty and registration charges are levied by the state government where the property is located and vary materially — both in rate and in any concessions (for example, some states offer a reduced rate for property registered in a woman's name). NRIs pay the same state-applicable stamp duty as resident buyers; there is no NRI-specific surcharge or discount on stamp duty itself.

Yes. An NRI can gift immovable property in India to a relative (as defined under the Income-tax Act, which includes specified family relationships) without attracting gift tax in the hands of either party, since gifts to relatives are exempt under Section 56(2)(x). The transfer must be executed through a registered gift deed. Gifts to a non-relative above a specified value threshold can attract tax in the recipient's hands as income from other sources, subject to specific exemptions.

If you have a valid, registered will, your named executor or beneficiaries generally need probate (in specific circumstances required by law) or can proceed with mutation and transfer based on the will and death certificate, depending on the property's location and applicable state practice. Without a will, the property devolves under the applicable succession law based on your religion and family structure, generally requiring a succession certificate or legal heirship certificate. Family members typically need to engage a representative or PoA holder in India to complete the documentation; physical travel by every heir is not always necessary if properly represented.

PNPC operates as one practice across Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Dubai. The Dubai desk is your primary point of contact for the initial consultation, PoA drafting and Embassy attestation coordination, tax computation review, and repatriation planning, while the India-based team handles title due diligence, Sub-Registrar coordination, and the physical execution steps. You brief one team once, with full context carried through the engagement rather than handed off between disconnected advisors.

Simply owning Indian property with no rental income received and no sale transaction in a given year does not, by itself, create a mandatory filing obligation for an NRI whose total Indian income is below the basic exemption threshold. If the property is let out and generates rental income, or if TDS was deducted on any related payment, filing is generally required to report that income or to claim any refund due.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) requires most real estate projects above a specified size to be registered with the state's Real Estate Regulatory Authority, mandates escrow of a defined percentage of buyer payments for construction costs, requires the promoter to disclose project timelines and specifications, and provides a dedicated grievance-redressal forum for delay, misrepresentation, or defect claims. Checking a project's RERA registration and the promoter's compliance history before booking is one of the most effective protections available to an NRI buyer who cannot easily visit the site during construction.

Yes, joint ownership between spouses (or other co-owners) is common and straightforward to register. For tax purposes, rental income or capital gains on sale are apportioned between co-owners based on their actual ownership share and, where relevant, the source of funds each contributed — not automatically split equally. Repatriation of sale proceeds is similarly tracked against each co-owner's own USD 1 million annual ceiling and lifetime property-count cap individually.

Yes. We regularly conduct a retrospective review of an existing property — confirming clean title and current Encumbrance Certificate status, verifying whether the original purchase was FEMA-compliant, checking that rental income (if any) has been correctly reported, and confirming the property and cost documentation are in order for a future sale or inheritance event. This is worth doing proactively rather than discovering a gap only when a sale is already under negotiation.

PNPC agrees a fixed, transparent fee scoped to the specific engagement before any work begins — a straightforward PoA drafting and attestation coordination is priced differently from a full purchase or sale engagement with title due diligence, tax computation, and repatriation support. We provide the scope and fee in writing before starting.

A local property agent focuses on finding and closing the transaction; they are generally not positioned to advise on FEMA eligibility, TDS computation, Lower Deduction Certificate applications, or repatriation compliance. An India-based lawyer with no UAE context can handle the legal drafting correctly but may be less attuned to the practical realities of Embassy attestation scheduling, UAE document formats, or the day-to-day friction of transacting across time zones. PNPC's Dubai desk, working with the India-based execution team under one engagement, is built specifically to close that gap across the full transaction lifecycle.

Payment for the purchase must be made through normal banking channels into India — either by inward remittance from abroad, or by debit to an NRE, NRO, or FCNR account maintained in India in accordance with FEMA and the Foreign Exchange Management (Deposit) Regulations. Payment in cash, or through any channel outside normal banking channels, is not permitted for acquisition of immovable property by an NRI under FEMA. Which account you route funds through also has a later consequence: it affects how much of the eventual sale proceeds can be repatriated.

A PoA holder who acts beyond the specific powers granted in the document has no legal authority for that excess act, and any transaction executed outside the granted scope can be challenged and is generally not binding on the principal. Where misuse or fraud has occurred, the principal can revoke the PoA (with the revocation itself needing to be properly executed and, where the original PoA was registered or relied upon by third parties, communicated appropriately) and pursue civil or criminal remedies against the PoA holder as the facts warrant.

Mixed-residency co-ownership is common and manageable, but each co-owner's tax treatment is assessed independently based on their own residential status — your share of rental income or capital gains is taxed as an NRI's India-sourced income, while your sibling's share is taxed as a resident's income, potentially at different effective outcomes even though it is the same property. TDS treatment on any sale also differs by co-owner: a buyer withholds under Section 195 on the NRI co-owner's share and under Section 194-IA on the resident co-owner's share.

A formal valuation report from a registered valuer is not mandatory for every transaction, but PNPC recommends one in several specific situations: supporting a Lower/Nil Deduction Certificate application under Section 197, establishing fair market value as on 1 April 2001 for older inherited property where original cost documentation is unavailable, and as supporting evidence in any future scrutiny of the declared sale consideration against the stamp-duty guideline value for the area.

PNPC's core service is transactional and tax/FEMA advisory — purchase, sale, inheritance, PoA, and repatriation — rather than ongoing property management (finding tenants, collecting rent month to month, arranging repairs). For clients who need that operational layer, we can advise on structuring a property management arrangement under the same Power of Attorney framework used for other transactions, and we remain the tax and compliance advisor for the rental income and any eventual sale even where a separate property manager handles day-to-day operations.