Flying Home to Mumbai for Diwali? 6 Property Jobs Worth Doing in Person
As an NRI / OCI your Diwali trip is the one week you can sort your Mumbai paperwork in real life.
For eleven months of the year, your Mumbai flat is managed from a distance. There are WhatsApp updates from a broker, email threads with a lawyer you’ve never met and bank OTPs going to an Indian SIM you gave up years ago.
Most of that works fine remotely. You don’t need to fly over just for paperwork.
But a handful of jobs are very different on the ground.
From London or Melbourne, they mean notaries, apostilles, couriers and waiting up to three months.
In Mumbai, they’re one appointment and a signature. If you skip them while you’re there, they wait another year, usually until the day something goes wrong.
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With Lakshmi Puja on Sunday 8 November, 2026 that window is now about a week away.
The 6 Jobs Worth Doing While You’re Home
1. Sign your Power of Attorney in Mumbai, not abroad.
This is the biggest time-saver on the list. A POA signed overseas has a long journey ahead of it, and a strict stamping deadline once it lands in Maharashtra, with penalties of up to ten times the stamp duty if it’s missed. Signed in Mumbai, most of that falls away.
2. Update your mobile number and KYC at your bank.
The most common NRI banking crisis isn’t fraud. It’s a lock-out: a missed re-KYC, a restricted account and an OTP sent to a number you no longer have. Fifteen minutes at your home branch prevents it.
3. Check whose name is on the society share certificate.
In a Mumbai co-operative housing society, this certificate often matters more day to day than the sale deed in your drawer. If it’s still in a late parent’s name, the society won’t treat you as the owner.
4. Gather your original documents and scan them in one sitting.
Renting, selling, probate and lower-TDS applications all move faster once you know the originals exist and where they are. Photos on a cousin’s phone don’t count.
5. Walk through the flat and take dated photos.
An hour on site tells you more than a year of second-hand reports, and gives you evidence if a deposit dispute or society complaint ever comes up.
6. Meet your lawyer and CA, and leave with a one-page plan.
Thirty minutes in the same room is worth more than months of email threads, and it’s your chance to find out whether you actually trust them.
Before You Book A Single Appointment
Each of these jobs has a detail that decides whether your morning in Mumbai works or gets wasted. The full Diwali checklist on Substack walks through each one, including:
- What to bring to the sub-registrar for your POA, who has to attend and the one thing to ask your lawyer to do before you fly
- How to choose the right person to hold your POA and who should never hold it
- The bank account rule many NRIs are unknowingly breaking and why the penalties are steep
- The society fee you shouldn’t be paying at all after a parent passes away and the cap on fees when a flat is sold
- The one property record that often won’t load from abroad, so you should download it while you’re in Mumbai
- The exact Diwali dates when Mumbai banks are shut, so you don’t lose a morning to a locked door
- The three jobs you should never queue for in Mumbai, because they can be done online from London or Melbourne
If you have a flight booked, the full checklist is a five-minute read, so it’s worth reading before you pack.
Why We Write About This
We’re India Property Connect and we write Mumbai Property Without the Guesswork. I’m Geeta, a Chartered Accountant in London and my co-founder Penny is an immigration lawyer in Melbourne. When my grandmother passed away, I had to sort out her Bandra flat from London, so I’ve dealt with inherited flats, housing societies and remote paperwork first-hand. Penny brings twenty years of cross-border legal experience.
Every week, we explain one piece of Mumbai property, tax or compliance in plain English, for NRIs and OCIs who:
- have inherited a family flat and don’t know where to start,
- are selling and want a clean, fully legal sale, or
- are renting out a flat and want to manage it properly from abroad.
If that sounds like you, or your parents, subscribe free on Substack and each issue will land in your inbox.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules, dates and fees change, so always confirm with a qualified professional before you act.
