Pakistan has built special courts for citizens living abroad: federally in Islamabad since 2024, in Punjab since 2025, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2026. Electronic filing, hearings over video link, and ninety days to judgment once leave to defend is granted. Wakeel finds you an advocate who has actually used them.
Photograph: Hassan Pasha
Almost every family abroad handles Pakistan the same way. Someone calls a cousin. The cousin knows a man. Years pass, the file moves an inch, and nobody can say what the last hearing decided or what it cost.
The law changed in 2024, first in Islamabad. Special courts for overseas Pakistanis, electronic filing, hearings you can attend from a kitchen table wherever you live, and ninety days to judgment once leave to defend is granted. What is missing is not the right, it is knowing which advocate in which city has done it before, and what they charge.
That is all this is. A list, checked properly, in plain language, in three of them.
A special court for overseas Pakistanis hears qabza and other property cases, but not in every province. The federal law covers Islamabad Capital Territory only. Punjab passed its own law in 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2026. Ask your advocate whether that court is open where your land is.
Succession certificate for movable property, accounts and shares. Letter of administration for immovable property, land. NADRA issues both without a court, under a law that covers Islamabad Capital Territory. That route is open only where the heirs agree, and not where one of the heirs is a child. NADRA publishes a notice, and issues the document if nobody objects within fourteen days. Heirs abroad give biometrics at a NADRA office in Pakistan or at a designated Pakistani mission; check whether yours is on that list before you plan around it.
Special for one matter, general only for someone you would trust with everything. Have the draft checked in Pakistan before you sign it. You have to appear in person at the mission: a power of attorney cannot be couriered through.
These are two different routes. Talaq is the husband’s pronouncement followed by written notice to the union council chairman, and under the 1961 Ordinance it does not take effect until ninety days have passed. Khula is the wife’s suit in the family court, and that can be run through an attorney. Paperwork follows either route, and more than one office is involved in it.
A sale you never signed, or a mutation entered in the record without you. Ask your advocate to read the mutation history for the land before you spend anything, and to tell you what the record says today.
Pakistan has dual nationality arrangements with twenty-two countries. Citizens of those countries do not have to give up their own nationality to take Pakistani citizenship. Whether the country you live in is one of them is the first thing to check, and a few countries are on the list under a narrower rule.
These six come up most. The full list is longer, and it starts with what happened, not with the legal word for it.
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Nobody in Mirpur was waiting for us to fly home.
Second-generation, living abroad. Inherited land, four heirs, no papers
Every directory shows city and years of practice. Almost none show the three things that decide whether you can use an advocate from abroad.
We are a register, not a law firm. We do not take your case. What we do is verify the people on this list, and show you what we checked.
How we verifyRoll number checked against the bar council register.
Claims about the overseas Pakistanis courts checked against actual filings.
Written by signed-in clients, published as they wrote it, or not at all.