🇬🇧 Valuing your Indian property from United Kingdom

Inheritance tax moved to a residence test

From April 2025 the United Kingdom moved inheritance tax from a domicile basis to a residence basis. The practical effect is that long term UK residents have their worldwide estate, including Indian property, brought into scope. Broadly, ten of the last twenty tax years resident is the test that pulls people in.

Families who assumed the Indian flat sat outside the estate should check where they now stand.

IHT417 and what HMRC expects to see

The foreign assets schedule asks you to enclose any professional valuations obtained, with photographs and the exchange rate used at the date of death. That is precisely how we build a probate report: value as at the date of death, dated site photographs, and a conversion to sterling stating the rate, its source and the date.

Financial remedy proceedings

English courts default to a single joint expert, jointly instructed and jointly paid, whose duty runs to the court rather than either party. That sits in Part 25 of the Family Procedure Rules with Practice Direction 25D. A report one side commissions alone, without permission, carries little weight.

Form E asks for worldwide assets, so the Indian property is disclosed either way. The valuation date is generally close to the hearing, which can mean an update if proceedings run long.

The older treaty

The estate duty convention between India and the United Kingdom dating from 1956 still has relevance for some families. Worth your solicitor checking rather than assuming it is dead letter.

Selling while UK resident

Indian tax at source applies on the sale value unless a lower deduction certificate is in place first, and your UK return will need the gain computed on its own basis.