General Power of Attorney

[FitbitAddict]

Anyone used one that had not been signed in front of a solicitor when buying or selling a property?

Do you mean one you have drawn up yourselves? If it has been witnessed and registered it should be valid?

I had POA for my father although I didn't use it to buy/ sell property. As long as it's registered by the office of the public guardian it should be enough. If in doubt ring the OPG and ask them.

A general power of attorney does not need to be registered or signed in front of a solicitor. I'm still not 100% sure it will be accepted everywhere though.

I thought any type of power of attorney needs to be witnessed and registered in order to be used. Why dont you go on line to the official website and look and there is probably a help line to call. I know we had problems with some banks not accepting our poa for my mil but others would. This had been registered with office of the public guardian.

Powers of attorney do need to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian if they are to be used. By general POA, I'm assuming you mean POA for health and welfare? As bibo says, check the POA website. It does not however have to be done via a solicitor, I did Dad's myself, it was signed by the GP and a witness (and my Dad of course).

Sorry that should have read "you mean POA for finances and property"

A general power of attorney is valid for one year and does not need to be registered. Our solicitor confirmed as much today, and also offered to check our version of the document to ensure the wording was correct and the document was valid rather than charge us £150 for drawing it up himself.

Ok, that's right. A GPA ( I must admit I hadn't heard of them) gives limited powers for one year only and can be used if the donor has capacity, it doesn't need to be registered . In my case my dad was developing dementia so I had an enduring POA which had to be registered.