Can grandsons claim grand fathers self earned property

Dear Sir,

It is not legally correct to say that only the surviving son alone becomes entitled to the entire property merely because the property was originally self-acquired property of the grandfather. The crucial point is that after the grandfather’s death, the property ceased to remain his exclusive property and vested in the beneficiaries named under the Will. Thereafter, the shares belonging to deceased sons would devolve upon their respective heirs.

Grandsons may therefore claim rights, not directly as coparceners in the grandfather’s self-acquired property, but as legal heirs of their respective deceased fathers who had already inherited shares under the Will. For example, if one of the six sons died after the grandfather, the share allotted to that son under the Will would ordinarily pass to his own heirs, including his children. In such a situation, the grandson’s claim is derivative through his deceased father.

Dear client,

If the property was the self-acquired/self-earned property of your father, then succession will primarily depend upon the terms of the Will executed by him. A self-earned property is different from ancestral/coparcenary property, and therefore grandsons do not acquire any birthright in such property during the lifetime of the owner.

In the present case, since your father executed a Will distributing the property equally among his six sons, each son would ordinarily become entitled to the share bequeathed to him upon the death of the testator. If any of those sons subsequently expired after the father’s death, then the share which had already vested in that deceased son would normally devolve upon his own legal heirs, including his widow, children, and legal successors, unless the Will specifically provided otherwise.

Therefore, merely because only one son is presently alive does not automatically mean that he alone becomes entitled to the entire property. The grandsons may not claim directly as coparceners in the grandfather’s self-acquired property, but they can inherit through their respective deceased fathers if the shares had already vested in those fathers after the grandfather’s death.

The crucial issue is:

whether the Will gave absolute vested shares to all six sons upon the grandfather’s death; or
whether the Will contained any survivorship or conditional clause restricting inheritance only to living sons.

In absence of such restrictive wording, the legal heirs of the deceased sons can ordinarily claim the respective shares inherited by their fathers.

Consult an advocate.