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As some of you may know, I'm leaving the US for a few months of studying in France. While abroad, I will not be able to endorse any checks made out to me, fill out a tax return, etc, so I'm going to need someone with power to sign things for me. My parents have volunteered to do this, but my question is: Is there an easy way to go about granting power of attorney to another person for a temporary basis? Can I simply download a form from one of the "legal form" websites and fill it out? I live in VA, if that helps.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I think you can grant power of attorney to someone and then withdraw it. I don't know what that entails, though.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Brian, Are you a student at Radford? If so, check with the student services office to see if they can help you out.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Yes you can assign power of attorney on a temporary basis and limited in scope - i.e. only routine banking or only real estate, etc. - or a blanket Property Power that allows your agent to transact any business that you would if you were present. Each state has its own statutory form, and while you could download Virginia's from a "legal forms" website, most of those are not free. Your bank would be an excellent place to ask for this, or as THT suggested, the college may have this available as well.
(and if I had Virginia on file here at the office, I'd just email it to you with signing instructions, but I haven't had the need arise for that state yet)
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I had to do this when I studied in London, but (as far as my college's requirement was concerned) it was mainly so that someone would have the power do deal with my school financial account while I was gone, since the school in London was the sister school of my college and all the expenses were paid through my home college's office. The study abroad office provided a power of attorney form for us, but we had to get it notarized - both parties had to sign it in the presence of a notary public.
You can find free state-specific power of attorney form templates on the internet if you google for it. AFAIK, there aren't specific forms you must use - I think the part that makes it legally binding is the notarization. I was able to find an IL form template online for my mom for something unrelated to the study abroad thing, and there were a ton of different types of power of attorney forms available. I think it was from this site. I don't see any forms that are specifically temporary, but you might be able to write in a clause stating that "these powers of attorney shall be applicable until such-and-such date, at which point all powers of attorney shall revert back to the principal," or something like that. They also have forms for revoking the power if it turns out that you can't write in a clause to the intial one, but the forms I had for school didn't require a separate form revoking power; they had an expiration date.
Oh, and the site I linked implies that you're supposed to buy the forms from them as a Word doc, but I just copy-pasted the text into a Word doc myself. The notary public didn't have a problem with it.
This was all in Illinois, so the laws may be different in your state. And I'm certainly not a legal expert, so there's a possibility that I'm wrong, but I hope some of this helps. Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Today's caffeine has worn off - I read Goody's post earlier without actually comprehending it. Perhaps she could verify if this would work or not, but this is the VA form off that site I'd linked. Again, they want you to buy it, but I don't see any reason why you can't just copy the text and make your own Word doc.
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FYI, banking with a power of attorney isn't all that easy. The best thing to do is get on an account with someone you trust or have your parents deposit money into an account you can access there.
If they want to transact business for you with the PoA, they have to fill out an affidavit of attorney in fact and have it notarized. Every time. It's not any fun.
Edit to add: Come to think of it, we won't take anything but a durable power of attorney. I'm not sure you can get anyone to let you bank with a temporary PoA.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Thanks to everyone for your advice and comments! Nell, I followed your link to the VA form and copied and pasted it into Word (interestingly, the website terms of service explicitly give permission to do this--I guess they sell them for people who are too dumb to figure out the Ctrl C and Ctrl V functions.) I hope that it works out for me. AvidReader, the form actually is for durable power of attorney. I will revoke it with a separate form when I return to the U.S.
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