Gift, Partition, Release and Will: Which Deed Do You Need?

Choose the instrument by intent

• Sale deed — transfer for consideration. Full stamp duty.
• Gift deed — transfer without consideration, usually within family. Concessional duty often applies to close relatives; must be registered and accepted during the donor's lifetime.
• Partition deed — divides jointly held or ancestral property into defined shares. Registered; duty on the shares as prescribed.
• Release / relinquishment deed — one co-owner gives up their share to another co-owner. Cannot be used to transfer to an outsider.
• Settlement deed — a family arrangement recording an agreed distribution.
• Will — takes effect only on death, revocable until then, does not need registration but registration reduces disputes.

What families get wrong

1. Using a will where a gift was intended, leaving the beneficiary without title for years.
2. An unregistered "family understanding" on plain paper — unenforceable.
3. A release deed executed in favour of a non-co-owner.
4. Forgetting to update khata and tax records after the transfer, so revenue records still show the old owner.
5. Ignoring the rights of daughters and other coparceners in ancestral property.

Practical steps

Get a title opinion first, decide the instrument with a lawyer, register at the sub-registrar with all parties present or through a properly executed POA, then update khata, tax and utility records.

Where we help

Our legal services desk drafts and coordinates registration of family transfers, and updates the revenue records afterwards — the step most people forget.