Living in India but Own Property in the UAE? What Resident Indians (Not NRIs) Need to Know

As a resident Indian, buying UAE property is governed by FEMA and the RBI's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, which caps how much you can remit abroad in a financial year. Once the property is legitimately held, it still needs its own UAE-recognised will, since your existing Indian will was not drafted with it in mind.

How Much Money Can I Send From India to Buy Property in Dubai?

As a resident Indian, you can't send an unlimited amount. Overseas property purchases by residents are governed by FEMA and the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), which caps how much a resident individual can remit abroad in a financial year and requires the purchase to be routed and declared correctly. Confirm the current cap and documentation requirements with a chartered accountant or FEMA-focused advocate before you remit, since this is separate from, and sits alongside, the succession planning the rest of this post covers.

A Different Situation From the NRI One

Most UAE estate-planning content aimed at Indians assumes you live in the UAE and hold property in India. This post is for the opposite, and increasingly common, situation: you live and work in India, are a resident Indian for tax and FEMA purposes, and you have bought or inherited an apartment, villa, or other asset in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or elsewhere in the UAE, purely as an investment or a second home. That is a genuinely different legal and regulatory position from an NRI's, and it comes with its own gaps.

The FEMA and LRS Layer Most People Skip Past

As a resident Indian, buying overseas property is governed by FEMA and the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, which caps how much a resident individual can remit abroad in a financial year and requires the purchase to be routed and declared correctly. This is separate from, and in addition to, the succession question this series otherwise focuses on. If you bought UAE property without routing the funds through LRS correctly, that is worth resolving with a chartered accountant or FEMA-focused advocate on its own, independent of your will.

Once the property is legitimately held, however, the succession problem is the same one every other owner of UAE real estate faces, regardless of nationality: the property is treated as governed by UAE law because of where it sits, not by where you live or your FEMA compliance status.

Your Existing Indian Will Almost Certainly Does Not Cover It

If you have an Indian will, drafted with an Indian advocate, covering your Indian assets, it may not have been drafted with your UAE property in mind at all, and even if it lists the UAE asset, a will executed and witnessed under Indian law is not automatically the document a UAE court or land department will act on for a UAE-situated property. You need a UAE-recognised will, registered through the DIFC Wills Service Centre, the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department's non-Muslim wills registry, or the relevant registry for wherever the property sits, specifically for that asset.

You Do Not Need UAE Residency to Register

A common misconception among resident Indian investors is that UAE wills registries are only for people who actually live and hold a residence visa in the UAE. Non-resident owners can generally register too, since the registries exist to protect whoever owns the asset, not only UAE residents. Confirm the current eligibility position for non-resident registrants with the specific registry or a UAE-licensed lawyer, this detail is set by the registry and can change.

Without It: What Your Family in India Would Face

If something happened to you and there was no UAE-registered will, your family, based in India, would need to navigate the UAE succession process from abroad, working through the default framework or proving your Indian will's applicability to a foreign court, while the property itself sits frozen and unable to be sold or transferred. Distance makes an already slow process slower. A UAE-registered will removes the ambiguity a foreign family would otherwise be navigating from outside the country.

Keep Both Documents Working Together

Your Indian will should continue to handle your Indian assets, your UAE will should specifically handle the UAE property, and both should name executors who can realistically work together, ideally people who don't need to physically be in both countries simultaneously to act.

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