Limited Power Of Attorney Btw Spouses
Hello All,
I have a question about a situation I became aware of a few days ago. A couple have a property in Kansas which they had listed for sale. They found a buyer, negotiated and agreed on a price. At the time of closing, the wife was out of the country on a job assignment for her firm and would not be back in the country for a while. This was when problems began. It turned out that her signature was needed to transfer title on the property even though her husband had bought the property when he was single before they even met. Does anyone know why this is necessary?
The husband tried to have his wife sign a power of Attorney and fax it back but the title company refused for two reasons i) They insisted that the power of Attorney would only be valid if it was prepared by one of their own lawyers (For insurance reasons) and ii) They would not accept faxed signatures.
This situation raised a number of questions for me. I thought the title company could not make you use any agent that was affiliated with them. Doesn’t that introduce conflict of interest issues? To avoid such a situation, is it possible for a couple to execute limited power of attorney documents on behalf of each other for any property that they own? I guess that would mean that they could each sign on the other’s behalf if the need arose. Would these power of Attorney documents need to be drawn up by a lawyer or would it be sufficient to just have them notarized in the state where the property is located? If this will not work, is there any other way to achieve the same effect with one’s spouse?
Right now, the couple have allowed the buyers move in to the house but are feeling the pinch beacause the buyers are not happy that they haven't received clean title yet.
Thanks in advance for your responses.
JS.
Yes, you can have prepared limited POA for each property/spouse in advance.
If you can find and consistently use the same attorney, that would be helpful, as some are picky about accepting a different form of POA than the one they write up. They need to be notarized, too.
i) They insisted that the power of Attorney would only be valid if it was prepared by one of their own lawyers (For insurance reasons) and
up tight. Can they draft the POA and have the wife notarized by a notary a a US consulate / Emabasy (yes a hassle, but gets the job done)
ii) They would not accept faxed signatures.
This is a reasonable concern. But that's what dhl/fed-ex/ups are for, or a scanner and email. In CA the notary much record a thumb print for any RE related transaction