Need for a Power of Attorney?

What is a Power of Attorney?

For those who do not know what is "Power of Attorney"? Let me first define it for you. A Power of Attorney is a written document in which one person (the principal) appoints another person to act as an agent on his or her behalf, thus conferring authority on the agent to perform certain acts or functions on behalf of the principal. In some parts of the world, it is also known as “Letter of Attorney”.

Parties involved

Before we get to what are types of acts, lets understand the parties involved.

The “Principal” also known as Grantor or Donor (of the power) is one authorizing an “Agent” which could be a family member or an Attorney, to act on Principal’s behalf and perform certain functions.

Acts or Functions

The principal can authorize an agent to perform one or all of following functions on his/her behalf under these two broad categories:

• Legal Matters – This involves activities related to legal affairs, like appearing in court case, filing & signing petition, etc.
• Finance – Activities related to finance are like being an authorized signatory for signing cheques on principal’s behalf, handling property matters e.g. buying or selling a property, property registration, Stock investment.

Types of Power of Attorney

A power of attorney may be special or limited to one specified act or type of act, or it may be general, and whatever it defines as its scope is what a court will enforce as being its scope.

• Durable Power of Attorney

Under the common law, a power of attorney becomes ineffective if its grantor dies or becomes "incapacitated," meaning unable to grant such a power, because of physical injury or mental instability, for example, unless the grantor (or principal) specifies that the power of attorney will continue to be effective even if the grantor becomes incapacitated. This type of power of attorney is called "power of attorney with durable provisions".

• Special Power of Attorney

This type of Power of Attorney is limited to specific actions & circumstances. For example, a Principal authorizing an Agent to handle property matters or legal matters on his behalf thus limiting Agent to certain actions only.

• General Power of Attorney

General Power of Attorney is broad in its scope and can be used for any actions permitted by Principal. Such an authorization will be terminated when the principal dies or becomes incompetent, but the principal can revoke the power of attorney at any time before as well.

As you are pretty comfortable about what a power of attorney is now, so lets see some use cases for why you need it. For instance, you are leaving for a job in abroad and you have some Bank Account in your country. From time to time, there could be some circumstances when you need to modify personal information in your account. Now most of the banks today still need your original signatures to accept the account changes. Sending a personally signed document could be expensive from abroad. In this case power of attorney comes handy. In some cases bank may need you to be personally present to perform certain action. A general power of attorney can help you there and you can send your agent on your behalf.

Another common problem people face is with Property investments. While buying or selling a property in your country while you are living abroad, could be quiet difficult. In such cases, you can get a general power of attorney made & nominate either your family member or a lawyer to handle the formalities on your behalf. This greatly simplifies overall procedure and relieves you from lots of stress and worries.

There are many sites from where you can get a power of attorney made online to suit your needs. i myself got mine from legalaffairs.in and they made it really fast and hassle free for me.

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