A registered nomination is the difference between your family recovering a shareholding in weeks and spending months, sometimes years, in court to prove they are entitled to it. It is the cheapest insurance available on a securities holding, it takes one form, and the overwhelming majority of old physical folios do not have one.
SEBI requires every physical folio to carry either a registered nomination or a recorded decision to opt out. Either satisfies the rule — but only one of them helps the people you leave behind.
What a nomination changes
On death, with a valid nomination, the nominee's entitlement is established by the nomination itself. Without one, entitlement has to be proved — and what that takes depends on the value of the holding and whether there is a will:
- A will, which above certain values and in some jurisdictions needs probate.
- A succession certificate from a court where there is no will — months, court fees and a lawyer.
- A legal heir certificate with indemnities, accepted by registrars for smaller holdings.
SEBI prescribes thresholds below which the lighter documents may be accepted, and those are revised periodically. But the comparison stands whatever the numbers: a nomination avoids the question entirely.
Registering one
- The nomination form in the prescribed format, signed by all holders.
- The nominee's details — name, date of birth, relationship, address and PAN.
- Where the nominee is a minor, a guardian's details as well.
- Witnesses, where the form requires them.
- A verifiable signature — so a folio whose specimen cannot be matched needs attestation first.
For a joint folio, all holders sign, and the nomination operates on the death of all of them — not the first.
Opting out, and why it is rarely the right choice
SEBI permits a recorded declaration opting out of nomination, and it satisfies the compliance requirement. It is the right answer in narrow cases — where a will already deals comprehensively with the estate and the holder specifically does not want a nominee to take precedence in the registrar's process.
It is the wrong answer when chosen because the form was shorter. Opting out leaves your heirs with the succession route, which is the outcome nomination exists to prevent. We will register an opt-out if that is your considered decision, and we will make sure you know what it costs the people who inherit.
What a nominee is and is not
Worth being precise, because this is widely misunderstood. A nominee is the person to whom the registrar or depository will release the holding on death. That is a matter of custody and process. Whether the nominee is also the beneficial owner under succession law — as against other heirs, or the terms of a will — is a separate question that nomination does not settle by itself.
In practice the two usually align because people nominate the person they intend to benefit. Where they diverge — a nomination made before a second marriage, or a will that says something different — it causes exactly the dispute nobody wanted. Review nominations after a marriage, a divorce, a death or a new will.
Changing or cancelling one
A nomination can be varied or cancelled at any time by the holder, using the prescribed form. The situations that should prompt it:
- The nominee has died — a folio nominating a dead person falls back to the succession route.
- Marriage, divorce, or the birth of children.
- A new will that allocates the holding differently.
- A minor nominee has come of age, making the guardian entry redundant.
The first is the one we see most and it is invisible until it matters.
What we do
We check what the folio currently records — including nominations you may have made and forgotten — prepare the registration, variation or opt-out, arrange a signature attestation where the specimen cannot be matched, and file it with the rest of the folio's regularisation in one request. For families we review every folio together, because a nomination on one and not the others is the situation that produces half a recovery.
The conversation worth having with your family
A nomination registered and never mentioned is only half the protection. The other half is that somebody knows the holding exists.
We are regularly engaged by families who found certificates while clearing a house, years after the holder died, with dividends long since unclaimed and the shares already transferred to the IEPF. In several of those cases a nomination was on file. It did not help, because nobody knew to act on it.
What makes a nomination actually work:
- Tell the nominee they are one, and for which companies.
- Keep a list of folios, companies and registrars where the family can find it.
- Record where the certificates are, if the holding is still physical.
- Review after any change — a marriage, a death, a new will.
None of this is legal work. It is the part that determines whether the legal work was worth doing.