Service
Lost, Damaged and Disputed Share Certificates
Physical shares that cannot be sold because the certificate is missing, torn, defaced or standing in a name the registrar will not accept, put back into a form that a depository will take.
Shares held on paper are not lost when the paper is. The holding exists on the company register whether or not you can find the certificate. What you cannot do is sell it, transfer it or claim against it until the registrar has been given a reason to reissue, and since 2022 what it reissues is not another certificate but a Letter of Confirmation.
That letter is a bridge into the demat system and it does not stay open. It is issued within thirty days of a complete request and is valid for one hundred and twenty days, in which the holder must lodge it for dematerialisation. Miss that window and the process restarts.
Who this is for
- Holders of physical certificates that were lost in a move, a flood, a fire or simply thirty years of filing.
- Families who have found certificates that are torn, water damaged, eaten or missing the distinctive numbers.
- Holders whose signature no longer matches the specimen the registrar holds, which is common after decades or a stroke.
- Anyone whose folio carries a maiden name, a misspelling, an old address or no PAN at all.
- Joint holders where one of them has died and the survivor cannot get the registrar to act.
- People who bought shares on a transfer deed that was never lodged, and now hold paper the register does not recognise.
Where these requests get caught
- KYC filed piecemeal. The registrar wants PAN, address, bank details, contact details and nomination together in Form ISR-1. Sent one at a time they generate one deficiency letter after another.
- Signature mismatch handled as an afterthought. Where the signature does not match, Form ISR-2 with banker attestation and an original cancelled cheque is the route. Ignoring it stops everything downstream.
- The advertisement and the police complaint. A duplicate request above the prescribed value threshold needs a newspaper advertisement and a filed complaint, and these have to be done in the right order to be accepted.
- The one hundred and twenty day window missed. The Letter of Confirmation lapses if it is not lodged for dematerialisation in time, and a lapsed letter means the whole request is made again.
- No demat account ready. Nothing can be credited without one, and opening it at the end rather than the start is what usually burns the window.
- A deceased or joint holder in the chain. Reissue and transmission are separate requests, and doing them in the wrong sequence means submitting the same documents twice.
- Nomination left unresolved. Holders must either nominate or record an opt out in Form ISR-3, and a folio that has done neither can be frozen for service requests.
What’s included
- Establishing what the register actually shows, against what you hold, before any request is made
- Complete KYC updation with the registrar in Form ISR-1, covering PAN, address, bank, contact details and nomination in one submission
- Signature mismatch resolution in Form ISR-2, with banker attestation and the supporting documents the registrar will accept
- Nomination in Form SH-13, change of nomination in Form SH-14, or a recorded opt out in Form ISR-3
- Duplicate securities requests in Form ISR-4, with the affidavit and indemnity in the prescribed formats
- Drafting and placing the newspaper advertisement where the value of the holding requires one
- Preparing the police complaint or first information report where one is needed for a lost certificate
- Following the Letter of Confirmation through issue, and lodging it for dematerialisation inside its validity period
- Opening or identifying the demat account the holding will be credited to, before the window opens rather than after
- Correction of name, spelling, maiden name and address discrepancies across the folio and the KYC record
- Consolidation of multiple folios in the same name so one holding is managed rather than five
- Recovering entitlements attached to the holding: unpaid dividends, bonus shares, split shares and rights issues
- Escalation through the company's investor grievance channel and the SEBI complaints mechanism where a registrar does not act
- A written record of every form filed and every reply received, handed over at the end
How it runs
Read the folio before touching a form
We ask the registrar for the position on the folio and compare it against the paper you hold. That surfaces the real problem, which is often not the one you came with: a signature that will not pass, a folio without PAN, a corporate action that changed the share count, or a holder who died and was never removed. Filing a duplicate request before knowing this is how people end up making the same request three times.
Clear the record
KYC, signature, nomination and name corrections go in as one properly assembled submission rather than a trickle. Where a value threshold triggers an advertisement or a police complaint, those are arranged now, in the order the registrar expects to see them, so that the reissue request lands on a folio that is already clean.
Get the Letter of Confirmation issued
The reissue request goes in with the affidavit and indemnity, and the registrar is required to issue a Letter of Confirmation within thirty days of a complete request. Incomplete is the operative word, so we answer deficiencies quickly and keep the request from being reset by a missing annexure.
Dematerialise inside the window
The letter is valid for one hundred and twenty days and must be lodged with a depository participant in that time. The demat account is already open by this stage, so lodging is immediate. We confirm the credit, check the number of shares against the entitlement including any bonus or split, and pursue the difference where there is one.
FAQs
I found the certificate after reporting it lost. Does that matter?
Tell us straight away, because it changes what should be filed. If the reissue process has not started, we simply proceed with the certificate you have, which is faster and cheaper. If a duplicate request has already gone in on an affidavit and indemnity, the recovered certificate has to be surrendered rather than quietly kept, and the registrar must be told. Holding both is a real problem rather than a technicality: you have sworn a document that is no longer accurate, and the indemnity you gave is live.
Why can I not just get a new share certificate?
Because that is no longer what the system issues. Since 2022 a registrar processing a request for a duplicate issues a Letter of Confirmation in place of a physical certificate, and that letter exists to move the holding into demat form. The intention is that physical certificates stop circulating altogether. Practically, this is good news: the letter has a defined thirty day issue timeline and, once dematerialised, the holding stops being something that can be lost in a cupboard again.
The shares are in my late father's name and my mother is the joint holder. What do we do first?
Transmission first, reissue after, and the order matters. Where the holding is joint, the surviving holder is ordinarily recognised on production of the death certificate and the prescribed transmission request, which is a considerably lighter process than a claim by heirs on a sole holding. Once the folio stands cleanly in your mother's name, any missing or damaged certificate is dealt with as her request. Doing it the other way round means assembling the same identity and KYC documents twice.
How much does the newspaper advertisement cost, and is it always required?
It is not always required. Whether an advertisement and a police complaint are needed depends on the value of the securities against the prescribed threshold, and small holdings are often dealt with on an affidavit and indemnity alone. Where it is required, the cost is the newspaper's, it varies a great deal by publication and edition, and we get a quote before booking it rather than after. We would rather establish first whether your holding actually crosses the threshold, because a surprising number do not.
Can you do this if I live abroad?
Yes, and a large part of this work is for people who do not live in India. The complications are practical rather than legal: attestation and notarisation have to be done in a form Indian registrars accept, which often means an apostille or consular attestation, originals have to travel, and the bank account for any payout has to be one that the registrar can pay into. We set out what has to be signed in front of whom before you start, because a document attested the wrong way abroad is expensive to redo.
Enquiries
Ready to talk about Lost, Damaged and Disputed Share Certificates?
A 30-minute conversation is usually enough to establish where you stand and what it will take.