A parent dies leaving a house in Karachi. Four children — two in Pakistan, one in the Gulf, one in Canada — agree it should be sold and the proceeds divided. Everyone is cooperative. Nobody expects difficulty.
Two years later nothing has happened, or worse, the property has been sold by one branch of the family and the others are consulting lawyers.
This is among the most common matters we handle, and it fails on process rather than on goodwill.
You cannot sell what is not yet yours on the record
On death, the estate devolves on the heirs in their fixed shares — but the record still shows the deceased as owner. Until that is corrected, no purchaser's lawyer will complete and no sub-registrar will register.
The sequence is:
- Establish the heirs and their shares under the applicable personal law
- Obtain the appropriate grant — letters of administration or probate for immovable property, and a succession certificate for bank accounts and other movables
- Mutate the property record into the heirs' names
- Then sell, with all heirs joining in the sale or acting through attorneys
Families routinely try to skip to step four, marketing a property they cannot yet convey. Serious buyers withdraw; the buyers who remain are the ones offering a discount for the risk, or the ones intending to exploit it.
Every heir must join in
A sale by some heirs of property in which others hold shares does not convey the whole. It conveys, at most, the selling heirs' undivided shares — and it creates a dispute that now involves a purchaser as well as the family.
These are the hardest property cases we litigate, because a purchaser who paid in good faith is also a party with a claim. Everybody loses something.
If a family member proposes selling "now" and "sorting out the paperwork later", that is the transaction to refuse.
How heirs abroad actually complete it
Nobody needs to fly home. What is needed is documentation, executed properly:
- A power of attorney from each heir abroad, executed before and attested by the Pakistani mission where they live, then attested in Pakistan
- The power must authorise the specific acts: to join in the succession proceedings, to sign the sale agreement and deed, to receive sale consideration, and to present the deed for registration
- Affidavits and no-objection statements where the court requires them
The authority to receive consideration is the clause most often omitted, and its absence stops a completion dead. See giving a power of attorney from abroad.
The realistic bottleneck is coordination: getting four relatives in four countries to each attend their local mission. Start that early, in parallel with the grant, not after it.
Where the proceeds go matters
Agree, in writing and before the sale, how the money will be held and distributed. The default arrangement — proceeds paid to the one heir who lives in Pakistan and "distributed later" — is how a cooperative family becomes a litigating one.
Better: payment by the purchaser through banking channels, into an account agreed in advance, with each heir's share remitted directly. Where trust is already strained, the sale documentation can provide for it explicitly.
Overseas heirs should also consider how their share will be remitted out, and take advice on the tax position both in Pakistan and where they live.
When one heir refuses
This is common, and it is not the end.
Sometimes the refusal is reasonable — an heir living in the property, or one who believes the price is too low. Sometimes it is leverage. Either way, no heir can be compelled to sell simply because the others wish to.
The remedy is a suit for partition. The court divides the property by metes and bounds where that is practicable, and where it is not — as with a single house — it can order sale and division of the proceeds.
Partition is slower than an agreed sale and it costs more, which is why it is worth attempting a negotiated resolution first, including one heir buying out the others at an independently assessed value.
If the property has already been dealt with
Where property has been sold, transferred or occupied by one branch of the family while others were abroad, act quickly. Remedies include cancellation of the instrument, a declaration of your share, partition, possession, and mesne profits for the period of wrongful occupation.
Delay is the real enemy: it allows onward transfers to purchasers claiming good faith, and it raises limitation questions. See property disputes from abroad.
Practical advice
Deal with the estate promptly. An undistributed estate with an empty house is the most vulnerable asset configuration in Pakistan.
Do the grant and the mutation before marketing the property, not alongside it.
Get every heir's power of attorney drawn correctly the first time — a defective one means another appointment at a mission on another continent.
Agree the money flow before the sale, in writing.
And instruct a lawyer acting for the heirs collectively, or for you individually — not the buyer's lawyer, and not the estate agent's cousin.
How the firm can help
We administer estates and complete sales for families spread across countries: establishing heirs and shares, obtaining letters of administration, probate and succession certificates, effecting mutation, drafting the powers of attorney each heir abroad will need, and conducting the sale and registration.
Where the heirs cannot agree we act in partition and declaration suits, and where property has been sold or occupied without authority, in the litigation that follows.
Contact the firm with the death certificate and whatever property documents exist. Establishing what the estate actually consists of is usually the first and most valuable step.