Updated: Jun 22, 2023
You may use lawyers or legal firms to create your Islamic estate plan. We will give you insight into using lawyers in the right way so that you can be able to create estate plans without compromising religious values and beliefs.
Generally, most of estate plans (i.e., Islamic Wills, Trust, Power of Attorney, Living Will, Deed of Gift, etc.) do not require a lawyer. However, we strongly recommend you consult a lawyer or an attorney and tax consultants, and some of the examples are below.
You are creating International Will under UNIDROIT.org conventions, the Will must be signed by a lawyer or attorney as an authorized person.
You own substantial assets that may pose tax issues (i.e., Inheritance, estates, death, or other taxes applicable on estates).
You are not legally married, but Islamically (i.e., Nikah) married.
You are legally married, but not Islamically (i.e., Nikah) married.
You are an illegal immigrant or do not have any legal status in the country.
You have more than one spouse.
You have assets in multiple jurisdictions (i.e., state, province, territory) that can pose tax issues directly or indirectly.
You have assets in more than countries (i.e., state, province, territory) that can pose tax issues directly or indirectly.
The only qualification Lawyer cannot make the estate planning experts. Generally, only the eighth or tenth portion of the lawyer degree course includes estate planning education. Other parts of the study may include a wide range of areas (such as litigations, rights, judiciary, constitution, finance, corporate employment, health, immigration, international, intellectual property, tax, etc.) where estate planning is one of the branches. It's difficult to find an attorney who is specialized in estate planning. It's more difficult to find a Muslim attorney. And even much more challenging to find a Muslim attorney specializing in estate planning. Education is one thing, but experience in estate planning matters a lot, similar to other professions.
All experts rely on the customer's interview to deliver optimum outcomes, and those professions may include medical, engineering, law firms, social or community services, and so on. You might be wasting money and time with a lawyer if you do not do adequate homework before consulting a lawyer. The more you research, the more meaningful questions you can ask the lawyer before selecting them. Selecting a lawyer is one of the things that resemble finding the right doctor for your medical care. For example, if you are going to see a doctor for your medical needs, then you would be thinking about what to ask the doctor so that you can get well soon from the sickness you are facing. Similarly, you must prepare yourself before consulting a lawyer, but the challenge is that most people do not know about estate planning, so they rely solely on Lawyer's advice. This complete reliance blindly is very dangerous because you end up creating a more advanced estate plan than you need or vice-versa or a non-compliant estate plan that you will learn shortly why!.
Wassiyyah provides comparative analysis through blogs so that you can make more meaningful decision.
Lawyers do not make much money while they provide service in creating the Last Will, but the real bread and butter for them are during the Probating or settlement process. In reality, the Probate process does not need a lawyer as it's just the clerical work of your Executor, who can accomplish it easily. In the case of an individual or family Trust the same thing, your Trustee can do him or herself for settlement. Wassiyyah offers detailed guidance in Premium blogs and articles so that you and your executors/trustees get trained, and you can save large administration expenses.
You should note that it's not the entire work of estate planning that depends on a lawyer, for example, if you are looking to improve tax efficiency in your estate plans, then you would need a tax/accounting expert but not a lawyer. One of the biggest misconceptions is that you would need a lawyer for all your estate planning needs.
Lawyers are human, and they rely on their expertise and are also bound by social, cultural, or religious dilemmas in terms of estate planning; what it means that the lawyer you are selecting will be giving you an estate plan based on the best legal practices that work locally in terms of social, legal, and cultural context. That's great, and nothing wrong until a point when your estate plan does not violate any fundamental values; driven by religious beliefs. For example, we have one of our customers who created an estate plan through a non-Muslim lawyer who did not know that my relative was a Muslim and would like to create an estate plan that is aligned with his beliefs. The lawyer suggested distributing the estates as per the country's law. When my friend found out that he suppose to create an estate plan that aligned with the Islamic laws of inheritance, he modified the Will with a lawyer to distribute the estates as per the laws of Islamic inheritance.
If you have a large estate and you do need a lawyer, then please consider the following suggestions.
The lawyer must know the fact about Islamic belief that when a Muslim dies, no other estate distribution laws apply except the Islamic laws of inheritance.
The lawyer should know how gifts are given in Islam. If he or she does not know when you should have conversations, the testamentary gifts can not be made, and he or she is including a part of the Will which can turn an Islamic estate plan into non-compliance Islamically. Unfortunately, this is not known to many Muslims, including attorneys.
You should have a conversation with a Lawyer about selecting Witnesses. The Islamic Will or Trust must be Witnessed by Muslim male relatives, friends, or anyone who is not a beneficiary, executor, or Trustee of your Last Will or Trust. If you have no option other than using female Muslim witnesses, then you may need more witnesses than usual, and we suggest consulting Islamic scholars if you are planning to use female Muslim witnesses.
Your lawyer should be aware that you would be using Muslim executors or trustees and the reason being the Islamic Will and Trust have many rules to follow during the probate and settlement process, and some background in Islamic laws of inheritance is essential or at least know how to get the answer if any questions arise during the process of probating or distribution of the estates.
Revealing faith and burial wishes are essential to consider when creating an Islamic Will and Trust. You should request a lawyer to include the faith and burial wishes section in your estate plan. We have heard stories that a family member died, and there were big conflicts between two groups on deciding between burying vs burning a dead body due to inter-faith marriages. It makes it easy if you have the wishes written down in your Will and Trust.
Before you consult a lawyer or Attorney, please complete these two forms, which would save much of the Attorney's time, and in the end, your estate plan cost will reduce. You can download YOUR INFORMATION FORM and the ASSET INFORMATION FORM.
We suggest using Muslim Lawyers or legal firms because Creating Will or Trust for Muslims is not just a legal or cultural thing but a religious obligation (Holy Quran, Chapter 4.11, 4.12 & 4.176). Muslim lawyers may have more knowledge about Islamic laws than Non-Muslim lawyers. This is not always true either. We heard from one of the customers who used Muslim lawyer services in India that the lawyer did not follow the estate plan according to Islamic laws of inheritance, and he made all properties to be given as testamentary gifts. This happened due to the cultural eco and the practices the lawyer was following for many years for many clients, even though the Lawyer was a Muslim. That's why it is essential that as a Testator (Grantor), you should be learning about estate planning to help lawyers as well.
Lastly, It's your estates, wishes, and your estate plans that you want to see at the end to meet the goal successfully. Irrespective of the case, we strongly encourage you to use lawyer services whenever you feel it is necessary, especially for many situations, such as owning substantial assets nationally and internationally.
Disclaimer: We are not a legal firm, and you agree to our terms and conditions. We are not liable for any damage or loss if you incur through our advice or service, and our advice or suggestions must consider as a reference only. Information provided here is copyright protected by International intellectual property laws. You can use our guidance, content, and service for your benefits but can not utilize intending to gain commercial advantage without prior written permission. We have used many third party links for you to refer—however, We neither affiliates nor represent any services listed or links provided on our website. You can click on below to refer to the detailed Terms, conditions, and our Privacy policy.