Litigation funding is creating a new financial route for people who hold potentially valuable claims over disputed property but cannot afford to fight for years. In India, firms that once focused mainly on commercial disputes are now evaluating inheritance and family-property cases, where land values can rise sharply while ownership remains frozen in court. The development exposes a deeper urban problem: property wealth is not useful merely because an asset has a high market value. It must also have clear title, an identifiable claimant and a realistic route to recovery.
The shift is illustrated by the case of a Delhi-based businessman, identified as Amit Aggarwal by Economic Times under a changed name. In 2008, he paid an advance for agricultural land estimated at Rs 40 crore. Eighteen years later, the land is estimated to be worth Rs 250 crore, but Aggarwal still does not own it. Other members of the farming family asserted competing claims during the transaction, leading to multiple cases at different stages. The children of the original seller have also sought the property.
Aggarwal approached Delhi-based consultancy Share Samadhan for help in deciding whether litigation finance could support his claim. Such financiers pay legal and related expenses in exchange for a share of the proceeds if the case succeeds or settles. Generally, the client does not reimburse the financier if the case is lost. Vikash Jain, co-founder of Share Samadhan, said the asset had appreciated sharply while remaining locked in litigation, leaving the buyer unable to comfortably fund a contest of such length.
That is the central distinction between a valuable property and an investable legal claim. A court dispute can involve an asset worth hundreds of crores, but the person seeking finance may be entitled to only a fraction of it. Legal costs, appeals, enforcement problems and delays can reduce the eventual recovery. The property may also be occupied, divided among several heirs or difficult to sell even after a favourable judgment.
For litigation financiers, the question is therefore not simply whether a claimant has a plausible case. It is whether the case can produce a recoverable financial outcome. This requires a chain of conditions: ownership must be established, competing claims must be resolved, the claimant’s share must be identified and a buyer or other exit route must exist. In property disputes, the legal victory and the financial recovery can be separated by years of additional uncertainty.
## From family dispute to investment decision
Legal Pay, a Delhi-based legal financing firm, receives about 10 inheritance-dispute queries a month from families, non-resident Indians and individual claimants, according to its founder Kundan Shahi. Five years ago, the firm received almost none, he said. About 70% of enquiries reach the evaluation stage, but only 10% receive funding.
The increase in enquiries reflects the financial structure of many inheritance cases. Heirs may have claims over valuable land or buildings but lack liquid funds to pay lawyers, court costs and expenses over a prolonged dispute. Some may also be unwilling to risk their own money on a case they could lose. Irfan Mughal, managing director of Five Rivers Capital, said claimants might prefer funding because they have better uses for their capital than spending it on litigation.
This arrangement changes the nature of a property dispute. A claimant who previously lacked the money to continue may be able to pursue appeals, evidence collection and enforcement for longer. The dispute can consequently become more durable and more financially organised. At the same time, the funder obtains an economic interest in the outcome, making the case subject to investment-style scrutiny.
That scrutiny is severe. Shahi described underwriting as the main challenge because the investment can be lost if the case fails. Legal Pay was approached by a Delhi-NCR family claiming ancestral property valued at more than Rs 300 crore. The firm considered the claim to have merit but declined to fund it because the land was occupied, seven heirs were contesting it, resolution could take years and there was no potential buyer.
The example is significant because it shows why market value alone does not unlock property finance. A funder needs to know not only what the land may be worth, but also who can sell it, when it can be sold and whether a purchaser is ready to act once the title is cleared. Shahi said Legal Pay would have funded the case immediately if a buyer had been prepared to purchase the land after the title was resolved.
## The cost of uncertainty in property markets
Firms evaluate the legal merits of a claim, the documentary evidence, the stage of proceedings, the financial position of the opposing party and the likelihood of recovery. They are effectively pricing uncertainty around land and property ownership. The process resembles an investment assessment, but its underlying asset is not freely tradable. It is a disputed right that may take years to convert into money.
Legal Pay looks for cases where potential returns justify capital remaining tied up for seven to eight years. Shahi said the firm targets returns of five to ten times the capital invested in cases with a defined exit, while stressing that these are targets and not guaranteed outcomes. Possible exits include a co-heir buying out the claimant, a court-ordered sale or a developer purchasing the property once the title is clear.
Pranav Mago, founder of litigation-finance consultancy Elf Partners, said less than 4% of enquiries involving inheritance and family-property disputes clear preliminary due diligence. His firm examines both the legal merits and the recoverable value. Overseas assets present additional enforcement questions because a favourable result may have to be pursued across jurisdictions.
Mago’s distinction is fundamental to understanding the emerging market: a legally meritorious claim is not automatically an investable claim. A claimant may be right in law but unable to obtain a timely payment. Conversely, a settlement may offer a more practical recovery than a judgment, especially where the opposing party has limited liquidity or enforcement would be complicated.
Share Samadhan generally considers claims of around Rs 50 crore and above, Jain said, because senior counsel fees, court costs and possible appeals can make smaller disputes difficult to finance. The consultancy accepts less than 5% of requests for litigation-finance consulting. Jain said the proposed funding should generally amount to 10-15% of anticipated recovery. Capital may be deployed in stages, with returns structured as a multiple of the investment or a capped share of net recovery.
## A new layer in the property ecosystem
Inheritance disputes are still a small part of India’s litigation-finance market, which remains focused largely on commercial cases. However, the interest of family offices, wealthy investors and high-net-worth individuals introduces another layer into the property ecosystem. These investors are being attracted by possible returns and portfolio diversification, while claimants receive access to capital that may otherwise be unavailable.
Share Samadhan’s subsidiary, Nyaya Mitra, assesses large claims and helps connect clients with funding capital. Five Rivers Capital mainly finances commercial disputes and arbitrations, but Mughal said the firm is seeing potential in property disputes because immovable assets can appreciate and offer a possible route to recovery.
The commercial-dispute experience cited by Mughal demonstrates how financing can affect the timing of an outcome. In one case, an Indian company had won an arbitration award but had not been paid by its counterparty. Five Rivers funded enforcement proceedings, including legal and counsel fees. Within three months, the counterparty agreed to settle for almost the entire outstanding award, and the financier received a return twice the capital deployed because the dispute ended in its first year.
Inheritance cases are less predictable because their outcomes may depend on family records, title documents and evidence that is difficult to assess at the outset. The number of heirs, possession of the property and the absence of a willing buyer can be as important as the strength of the legal argument. In this market, the most important asset is often not the land itself but the ability to demonstrate that the land can eventually be converted into a defined recovery.
That distinction also clarifies what litigation finance can and cannot solve. It can address the liquidity problem faced by an asset-rich claimant. It cannot by itself resolve fragmented ownership, unclear title, competing inheritance rights or a weak enforcement position. Nor does it remove the risk that a case will consume capital for years without producing a sale or settlement.
## The larger urban question
The spread of litigation funding into property disputes points to a wider feature of India’s real-estate economy: land can become economically valuable while remaining institutionally unusable. A plot may appreciate dramatically, yet fail to support construction, sale or redevelopment because ownership is contested. The result is property wealth trapped outside normal market circulation.
For cities and expanding urban regions, unresolved title disputes have consequences beyond the litigants. They can delay land assembly, prevent redevelopment and keep strategically located parcels underused. The supplied evidence does not establish the scale of that broader impact, but the cases described show how the gap between legal ownership and practical monetisation can persist for decades.
Litigation financiers are attempting to bridge that gap by selecting cases where legal rights, financial capacity and a credible exit can align. Their decisions also reveal the limits of headline property valuations. A Rs 100 crore property is not necessarily a Rs 100 crore recovery, and a strong claim is not necessarily a fundable one.
The emerging market therefore deserves attention less as a new source of speculative capital than as a measure of how much value remains immobilised by title uncertainty and prolonged disputes. What remains uncertain is how the sector will develop, how funding arrangements will be structured across different kinds of inheritance claims and how often financing will lead to settlement rather than extended litigation. For now, the firms entering this space are not simply betting on family disputes. They are betting on whether disputed property can finally become recoverable wealth.
