AasaanWill, a legal tech start-up that helps people write their wills in a jiffy, i plans to expand its services abroad, and attend to all the legal needs of people and become a family lawyer.
To begin with, the start-up is targeting the diaspora, particularly NRIs and techies.
Vishnu Chundi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AasaanWill, said if writing wills is not in vogue within the country itself, one can imagine the fate of the properties of the non-resident Indians who are creating wealth but hardly have any idea about writing a will.
Quoting surveys, he claimed that 20 per cent of all unclaimed NRI wealth was due to the fact they didn’t appreciate the need for writing a will.
“India sends six lakh students every year abroad. All of them are going to build wealth. Their parents are here. We are going to try and get the wealth properly allocated. “A lot of people invest in stocks. Because they don’t write a will. When they pass away, it could take up several months for their legal heirs to get a legal heir certificate and get the custody of the asset,” he said.
The two-year-old start-up, which employs 18 people, has offices in Jaipur and Hyderabad, the former helping it to target the Hindi belt. It raised $10 million in the seed round.
A family lawyer
The start-up i plans to expand its services to become a ‘family lawyer’. “Those who run pillar to post to get a legal heir certificate to claim their share of property are seeking legal help. Some need help to assign Powers of Attorney. We have already started with a desk that only does legal heir certificate and it’s not a trivial thing, it actually takes quite a few months to get the legal heir certificate,” he said.
“We have family doctors but we don’t have that culture when it comes to legal help. The family lawyers are there only for the wealthy business owners and their families. We would like to be a family lawyer, a kind of one-stop-shop for all your legal needs,” he said.
“We have written wills in four digits so far. To put that into perspective, the entire office of one of India’s premier law firms writes 30 wills in a year,” he said.
“Ïn the absence of a will, a legal document that assigns the rights on the properties to the heirs, properties end up in litigation and legal heirs are forced to fend for their rights in endless legal battles,” he said.
Awareness poor
Stating that awareness levels on the importance of getting a will ready when one is in the pink of good health, Vishnu said lakhs of people died unnatural deaths every year but people tend to ignore that fact.
In-built CSR component
“If you plan well, it (writing a will) gives you an opportunity to do justice to all the people that are important to you. Why, you can allocate a part of your wealth to philanthropic agencies or educational institutions,” he said.
“We have raised $14 million or various charities such as Akshay Patra and Mohan Foundation,” he said.
The technology developed by the start-up helps people to map their properties and wealth and allocate it as per their plans and can generate a will within a few minutes.
The start-up takes a fee of ₹3,000 for preparing a notarised will. “The lawyers will draft the will and get it notarised for you. If you want a registered will, we will charge ₹7,500, where we will give you all the assistance at the sub-registrar’s office,” he said.
