NRI Power of Attorney: Types and Complete Procedure

If you are NRI residing outside India but having properties and financial transactions in India, then you may face some challenges while managing these activities from outside India and you may need to visit India on a frequent basis which may not be feasible for every NRI. To ease such kind of transaction concept of POA (Power of Attorney) can be used. In this article, we are going to discuss what are the types of Power of Attorney that can be used by NRIs and how can they execute POA and smoothly manage all their transactions. 

Types of POA:

If you are willing to make a power of attorney, first you need to decide whether this is for general purpose or for a specific transaction. If you are planning to give all the rights to perform all the functions on behalf of you then you can go for General Power of Attorney which is also commonly known as GPA.

However, If you are planning to execute Power of Attorney for a specific transaction, you can go for Special power of attorney which shall be issued for some of the mentioned specific transactions that can be performed by the attorney holder on your behalf.

Apart from General and Special power of attorney, there is one more kind of Power of Attorney which can be issued by NRI which is Durable Power of Attorney. As its name suggests, durable POA shall remain effective for the whole lifetime unless or otherwise explicitly revoked or canceled.

Procedure to register POA while outside India:

After you have decided that whether you need to execute General or Special Power of Attorney, you can issue POA without even visiting India and now I am going to discuss what will be the process of that:

• Make a draft of POA on plain paper: This is the first step where you just draft all the powers on a paper which you want to share with the attorney holder.
• Get the POA attested by Indian Embassy/Consulate: After drafting of power of attorney, POA needs to be attested by the Indian Embassy/ Consulate of the country of residence of such NRI. While attestation of Power of attorney, 2 witnesses shall be required.
• Send this attested document to India: Now, this signed/ attested document by the Indian embassy/ consulate need to be sent to India where the person so authorized in India shall register that POA in India to make it a legally valid and enforceable document.
• Reach out to Concerned Authority to register POA: The person so authorized in India shall reach out to Sub Registrar or Financial commissioner office or any other concerned government office in whose jurisdiction such address of the property comes under for which this Power of attorney has been issued.

Documents Required to register POA in India:

Following is the list of the documents which will be required by the person to get such power of Attorney registered with the concerned government authority:

1. Copy of passport of the executants in Power of Attorney  ( Executants in our case is NRI).
2. Identity proof of Attorney holder i.e the person to whom authority has been given by the NRI (Aadhaar Card, Passport, etc.)
3. Address proof of Attorney holder (Utility Bills, etc)
4. Based on applicable state laws, at some places, one has to provide an Affidavit also along with all these documents.
5. Original Power of Attorney shall also need to be submitted along with all these documents.

After the documentation process is over and all the formalities stated above have been done. You can get the Power of Attorney stamped by the concerned government authority. And after you get it stamped then it shall be considered as the registered Power of Attorney.

Other Points to be taken care of:

• The person making power of attorney and the Person acting as POA holder must be mentally capable of performing their functions.
• NRI must provide his residential address of a foreign country while doing POA formalities.
• Always appoint a POA holder to whom you personally know and are reliable to perform financial and important transactions on your behalf. Because doing so may also create trouble for you in financial as well as legal matters.
• POA can also be revoked as and when the transaction has been completed or in any other situation on mutually agreed terms and conditions.

So, it is all about the Power of attorney execution procedures which can be performed by NRIs without even visiting India and all their tasks can be performed by Indian POA holders in their absence. Once the POA is stamped and registered then it shall be considered as a valid legal document and acceptable in all government offices for the purpose of possession and registration of property or any other power which is delegated in such power of Attorney.