When a Seller Turns Up With a Power of Attorney
POA sales are normal, and they are also where a large share of property fraud happens. How to tell one from the other.
Sooner or later a seller sends a relative with a power of attorney instead of coming themselves. Most of the time this is exactly what it looks like — an owner abroad, an elderly parent, a genuine convenience. Occasionally it is not, and the checks that separate the two take about an hour.
What a POA does and does not authorise
A power of attorney authorises someone to act for the owner. It does not transfer ownership, and a POA holder selling to themselves is a red flag every time.
Read the powers granted, clause by clause. A POA for managing a tenancy does not authorise a sale, and holders regularly present one believing it does.
A POA that authorises sale of immovable property generally needs to be registered, not merely notarised. An unregistered paper is where most of the trouble starts.
Check that it names the specific property. A general authority to deal with "all my properties" is legitimate but invites more scrutiny from the buyer's lawyer and from lenders.
The checks worth doing
Confirm the principal is alive. A power of attorney dies with the person who granted it, and a sale executed afterwards is void however sincere the holder was.
Ask for a recent video call with the owner. A genuine principal will do it in five minutes; the reluctance to arrange one is itself the finding.
If the owner is abroad, the POA usually needs to be executed before the Indian consulate or apostilled, then stamped in India within the prescribed period after arrival. Skipping the stamping is a common and fixable defect.
The so-called GPA sale — general power of attorney plus a will plus an agreement to sell, used as a substitute for a registered sale deed — does not transfer title. The Supreme Court settled this in 2011 and buyers still get offered the structure.
The arrangement to be wary of
Lenders dislike POA transactions and several will decline them outright, which affects your buyer's financing before it affects anything else.
Insist the sale deed recites the POA fully, with its registration number and date, so the authority is on the record of the transaction itself.
Where anything is unclear, the answer is a lawyer and not a reassurance. An agent who says "it should be fine" on a POA has taken on a risk they are not paid to carry.
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Is buying a property through a power of attorney safe?
It can be entirely safe when the POA is registered, specific, current and the principal is verifiably alive and willing. The risk lies in unregistered or stale documents and in structures used to avoid a proper sale deed.
Does a power of attorney expire?
It ends when revoked, when the stated period lapses, or when the principal dies or loses capacity. Death is the one people forget, and it voids everything done afterwards.
Can a POA holder sell the property to himself?
It is legally fraught and practically a warning sign. Treat any self-dealing POA as a reason to stop and take advice rather than a technicality to work around.
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