Can your father sell, gift or will his own house without asking you? If the property is his self-acquired property, the short answer is yes. Children do not get a birthright in property a father bought, earned or built himself. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this on 23 April 2025 in Angadi Chandranna v. Shankar, 2025 INSC 532, holding that the mere existence of sons and daughters does not turn a father's separate property into joint family property.
This guide gives you the quick test, a clear comparison table, what you can and cannot claim, and who has to prove what in court.
Run the property through these questions. A “yes” to any one of the first three usually points to self-acquired:
If the property is self-acquired, your father has absolute power over it during his lifetime. You have no veto and no birthright.
| Feature | Ancestral (coparcenary) property | Self-acquired property |
|---|---|---|
| How it is acquired | Inherited undivided through four generations of the male line, never partitioned | Bought, earned, gifted, willed, or received as a completed partition share |
| Birthright of children | Yes, coparceners get a right by birth (sons and, since 2005, daughters) | No, children get no right by birth |
| Can father sell or mortgage alone | Limited, only for legal necessity or benefit of the estate | Yes, freely and without anyone's consent |
| Can father gift it | Only a small share, with strict limits | Yes, he can gift the whole of it |
| Can father exclude a child by Will | No, the coparcener's share passes by survivorship or as undivided interest | Yes, he can will it to anyone and disinherit a child |
| Child's claim while father is alive | Can seek partition of his or her share | None, only inherits if father dies without a Will |
In Angadi Chandranna v. Shankar, 2025 INSC 532 (Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, decided 23 April 2025), the dispute was over farmland in Mahadevapura village, Karnataka. The father had received property in a family partition, sold it, and his children later claimed it was joint family property they had a birthright in.
The Court rejected that claim and laid down the key points clearly:
The mere existence of sons and daughters in a joint Hindu family does not make the father's separate or self-acquired property joint family property.
This builds on long-settled law. Property a person inherits from his father, grandfather or great-grandfather is ancestral only when it remained joint and undivided. The moment it is partitioned, that character is gone.
For a deeper toolkit on asserting or defending property records, see The RTI Playbook.
You CANNOT, while your father is alive, demand a share in his self-acquired house or land. You cannot block a sale, gift, or registered Will. There is no consent requirement and no birthright.
You CAN inherit it after his death only if he dies without a Will (intestate). Then it devolves under the Hindu Succession Act 1956 among Class I heirs, where sons and daughters share equally. A valid Will can lawfully cut you out entirely.
You CAN claim a share if the property is genuinely ancestral and still undivided. If it was never partitioned and flows through the male line, you are a coparcener with a birthright. Daughters have this same coparcenary right since the 2005 amendment, explained on our page on the daughter's coparcenary right in ancestral property.
This decides most family property suits.
In Angadi Chandranna, the children failed to prove any joint family nucleus, so the property remained self-acquired and the sale was upheld.
To keep records clean, get the mutation done correctly after any death or transfer. See our guide on mutation of property after death.
Suresh, Mysuru district. Suresh's father bought a 30×40 plot in 1998 from his salary and a bank loan. In 2024, the father sold it and used the money for his medical treatment. Suresh objected, arguing it was “family property” and he had a birthright. On the facts, the plot was bought from the father's own income, with no joint family nucleus shown. Following the reasoning in Angadi Chandranna v. Shankar, the property was self-acquired, Suresh had no birthright, and the sale stood. His only possible claim was as an heir, and only if his father had died without a Will, which was not the case.
When a dispute is brewing, the official record matters. You can file an RTI with the local Tahsildar or Sub-Registrar to obtain certified copies of the sale deed, partition deed, mutation entries and the chain of title. These documents are what a court uses to decide whether a property is ancestral or self-acquired.
Yes. If the property is his self-acquired property, he has absolute power to sell, gift, mortgage or will it without the consent of his children. You have no birthright in it and cannot legally block the sale.
No. It is ancestral only if it stayed joint and undivided across the generations. If your grandfather gave it to your father by a Will or gift, or if there was a completed partition, it becomes your father's self-acquired property, and you get no birthright.
No. The Supreme Court in Angadi Chandranna v. Shankar 2025 confirmed that children get no right by birth in a father's self-acquired property. They may inherit it after his death only if he dies without a valid Will.
Yes. A father can will his self-acquired property to anyone he chooses and can lawfully disinherit a child. The freedom of testamentary disposition over self-acquired property is complete, subject only to the Will being validly executed.
The person claiming it is joint family or ancestral property must prove it first by showing a joint family nucleus that could have funded the purchase. Only then does the burden shift to the side claiming it is self-acquired.
For self-acquired property, neither sons nor daughters have a birthright. Both inherit equally as Class I heirs only if the father dies without a Will. In genuinely ancestral undivided property, daughters have the same coparcenary birthright as sons since 2005.
Reviewed by Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak. This guide explains the law in plain terms and is not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer on your specific facts.