Property rights of minor children

The Transfer of Property Act of 1882 states that a minor can only acquire ownership of a property through a gift. There will be no opportunity for parental or guardian intervention in this situation. A minor may sign a gift deed in this situation as the donee. Minors are not permitted to sign a contract or deed under the Registration Act of 1908. To legally be able to sign a contract and acquire property ownership, a minor must be at least 18 years old.

The Indian Succession Act, of 1956, and the Indian Succession (Amendment) Act, of 2005, both state that children, whether they are males or girls, are automatically entitled to their father’s ancestral property by birth. The parents’ self-acquired assets can be bequeathed to whoever they choose via a written will. The children, who are Class I heirs, get priority over the parent’s property if they pass away intestate, that is, without a will. However, even if they are the owners of the property, underage children are not allowed to legally administer it. A legal guardian, or one chosen by the court, must submit a petition to the court to administer the property on behalf of the minor kid until that child reaches adulthood.

Ancestral Property

The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 and the court case U.R. Virupakshaiah v. Sarvamaa & Anr., decided on December 17, 2008, both state that any property that a Hindu gets from their father or ancestors is regarded as ancestral property. It was explicitly established in Smt Dipo vs. Wassan Singh and others, 5.05.1983, that anyone who receives their ancestral property is obligated to share the ancestral property with their successors, even if the successors may not obtain a part of their father’s property. To put it another way, whatever property a Hindu great-grandfather acquires can be divided equally among the next three generations. The following fundamental conditions must be met for a property to be regarded as ancestral property:

• Older than four generations.
• Each co-parent’s portion automatically becomes their self-acquired property.
• Only after the owner of the same property has passed away may co-parenting be allowed on the land.
• The birthright of the successors is the ability to request a share of the ancestry.
• Anything a person receives or acquires from their mother, grandmother, uncle, or even brother will not be regarded as ancestral property; rather, it will be a self-acquired item.
• However, if the self-acquired property is used by everyone and is willingly added to the ancestral property legally, it will be regarded as the ancestral property.

Case Law

In the case of T Vijaya vs. Turkapalli Mahhiah, the Telangana High Court has ruled that in light of the amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 2005, which gave daughters equal rights to sons in ancestral property, strengthening their claim to a share in such properties,  that a mother cannot legally relinquish the property rights on behalf of her minor children.

The original lawsuit was filed by the appellants, who are the respondent’s daughters, to divide their father’s property. In the instance of the appellants, disagreements between their parents occurred when they were very young, as a result of which the appellants and their mother left their father’s home and moved in with their maternal uncle.

According to the respondent, he frequently urged the appellants to return home because he did not want to live apart from them and their mother. The mother, it was countered, continued to live apart from her children out of stubbornness. The mother of the appellants abandoned her portion of the respondent’s property along with the appellants, who were at the time children, in exchange for receiving Rs 30,000 from a panchayat that was also convened, according to his further argument.

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