Hi,
This is a detailed story but please be patient as I need some advice which I hope someone on here can help with.
My grandfather, in his will, left his house in Kerala, India to his 5 sons (one of whom was my father). He left my father the largest share of the property and the other 4 brothers received a smaller share. However, my father passed away before my grandfather, which meant that his share was shared equally between my mother and me, his next of kin.
My grandfather passed away three years ago but neither me nor my mother was there to take possession of the property at the time of his death. Instead, one of his sons, with the Power of Attorney of the other 3 sons, created a new title deed (“Adharam”) which reallocated the land equally between all 5 brothers. He claimed that although the partition was done by my grandfather as per the old adharam, the sons never paid land tax (karam) and acquired the property in their names - this was the reason for why he said he had to re-partition the land into equal and create a new deed, as per kerala land revenue rules. Me and my mother have not signed this new title deed/Adharam.
My questions are as below:
1.Are we right in thinking that this new title deed is invalid without our consent?
2.Are we right in thinking that the original deed is still valid?
3.If we wish to go with the new deed, do we need to do some sort of registration to take possession of our share?
What is a good course of action to take?
I can go into further detail if anyone has any questions.
Thanks,
Vj
