This recent advertisement for a sealant didn't end all that well for the unscrupulous heir. But reality is very different; that's why you should read this article on wills and will-making

There's something the Indian psyche finds distasteful about the practice of writing wills. ''I am not going to die tomorrow,'' snaps Siddharth Shriram, Chairman of SIEL, when asked if he had made one. It's the association with death that draws reactions such as this but a will, says Max New York Life CEO Anuroop 'Tony' Singh, is pretty much like ''life insurance; you don't think of it in the normal course of life''. The business of insurance, courtesy competition, has grown-by 60-65 per cent in the past year by some estimates as compared to 20-22 per cent the year before-and thanks to changing value systems (Shriram, after all, is a businessman from the old school) more people are writing wills.

Wills weren't all that imperative in a milieu where the extended joint family was the norm. ''Family property is usually locked (in) by laws and the power of disposition is limited,'' explains Zubin Morris, a partner at law firm Little & Co, which helped the late Aditya Birla draft his will. ''So, members of joint families often don't bother to write wills.'' Joint families, though, are on the way out, and an increasing awareness of legal issues is driving more people to write (and register) their wills. ''People take the writing of wills more seriously now,'' says Dr Abhishek M. Singhvi, the late Madhavrao Scindia's counsel during the contesting of Rajmata Scindia's will. ''They even videotape themselves doing so (writing their wills).''

It isn't hard to make a will out in India. All one needs to do is put down everything on paper (type it, preferably so that courts may be spared the trouble of deciphering handwriting), find two witnesses-a doctor as one would be ideal; he or she can attest that the testator (as the person making the will is called) is of sound mind-and roll. Registering a will isn't mandatory although it does assure the document's 'legal sanctity'.

Registration is no insurance against the will being contested, something that happens to most in India, ''especially because property is at stake,'' says Rajiv Dhavan, a Delhi-based lawyer. The grounds on which a will can be contested cover pretty much everything, from questions on its authenticity to issues relating to the mental health of the testator. And if the will favours someone outside the immediate family, they can always contest it, and things could drag on and on...The childless owner of Manmohan building in North Delhi's Yusuf Sarai-one of those typical Delhi buildings with rabbit warrens that pretend to be offices-willed it to a university. His nephews and tenants convinced another university that he had wanted to bequeath the property to it. Today, 30 years after his death, the universities are still battling it out in court. ''Our legal system encourages litigation as opposed to settlement,'' rues Dhavan.

If contests are one part of the problem with wills, inadequate drafting is another. In one instance, a prominent Delhi-based businessman bequeathed his house to his widowed daughter-in-law. A subsequent will left the property to his daughters and asked the daughter-in-law to vacate the house by a certain date, but gave her a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the house. Only, the will didn't say anything about how and when the house had to be sold.

A will, for those of you who don't know this already, is revocable and can be superseded by another will. The last will is usually the valid one. A much talked about case is that of Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia's will. A handwritten, 11-page will, dated September 20, 1985, was produced after her death by her Secretary, Sardar Angre. This will disowned her son Madhavrao Scindia. Law firm Crawford Bayley and Company said it possessed a later will in which the Rajmata had named her three daughters as executors, but would not disclose its contents. The 1999 will only further complicated an ongoing battle, one that the New York Times observed would almost certainly have, ''an even lengthier afterlife in the leisurely Indian legal system.''

So, what's all this talk of missed (or embattled) inheritances doing in the personal finance section of the magazine? Only this: everyone-no matter if your worldly possessions comprise dud stocks, a house in Cochin that hasn't seen any appreciation in value in 10 years, and a 1988 Maruti 800-needs a will.

That's one. Two, be very clear in your mind as to what you wish to do with your assets. List movable and immovable assets separately. And remember to include a rationale for seemingly inexplicable decisions. ''If you want to leave your property to one person and not the other, you should include a reason; otherwise the will can be contested,'' says Avantika Keswani, a Delhi-based lawyer. Also remember to dot your is and cross your TS lest poor drafting skills undermine your intent.

Do you need a will? Actually, everyone does; especially people with a family. Indeed, as some recent cases show, if you don't make your will, someone else could (this actually happened to an Indian settled in Malaysia; someone who knew about his holdings in India forged a will and got it registered). That's why registrars have increasingly moved to the practice of attaching the testator's photograph to the will.

The growing relevance of wills (or drafting wills), says Max New York Life's Singh, is actually a business opportunity. ''Alas, no one has marketed wills as a product; what a great idea.'' We agree.