Power of attorney for property in India: an instrument of acts, not of title

What can a POA lawfully do in a property deal?

Everything procedural: sign the agreement, execute the sale deed as the owner's authorised agent, appear at the sub-registrar's desk, collect consideration into the principal's account, chase the mutation. The Registration Act's machinery expressly contemplates it — an agent may present documents when "duly authorised by power-of-attorney executed and authenticated" the way section 33 prescribes. What it cannot do is BE the transfer: Suraj Lamp's words — a POA "is not an instrument of transfer in regard to any right, title or interest in an immovable property" — are the whole law in one line, and the same judgment blesses the honest use, including a POA authorising the attorney to execute a registered sale deed.

How must it be executed and authenticated?

By section 33's list. Principal in India: execute before and have it authenticated by the Registrar or Sub-Registrar of the district. Principal abroad: a Notary Public, a court, judge or magistrate, or an Indian Consul or Vice-Consul — the consulate route NRI files run on, covered step-by-step in the POA-from-abroad guide. Registration of the POA itself is not on section 17's compulsory list, but Haryana's own deed-registration checklist presupposes a registered GPA and requires verification of GPAs registered outside the state — so treat "registered, specific, current" as the practice standard whatever the bare statute tolerates.

What does a POA cost to stamp — honestly?

Here the official record argues with itself, and this page says so rather than picking silently: the state portal's FAQ still lists the old figures (a few hundred rupees for a GPA or SPA) while the 2018 Haryana amendment to the Stamp Act's Article 48(a) — reflected in the portal's own current rate table — puts the general POA at ₹1,000. Budget for the current table and let the e-stamping desk state the exact demand. One rate is not in dispute anywhere: a POA given for consideration and authorising the attorney to sell immovable property bears conveyance-rate duty — the law's way of saying a disguised sale pays like a sale.

What does a property POA cost to stamp in Haryana?

The schedule the state portal itself serves prices the general power of attorney article at ₹1,000 — while the same portal's FAQ page has carried an older ₹300 figure, a conflict we print rather than paper over. In practice the desk applies the schedule; where an instrument's stamping is genuinely doubtful (executed abroad, executed years ago, unusual powers), adjudication by the revenue authority settles what that specific document owes, and settles it in writing. The cost is trivial against what the instrument moves; the discipline is simply to stamp on the current schedule and keep the receipt with the deed file, because an under-stamped POA is an objection waiting at the exact moment the attorney needs to act.

When does a POA stop working?

On revocation, on the principal's death, or on its own terms — and each ending has a transaction consequence. Agency dies with the principal, which is why a buyer facing an attorney-signed deal verifies that the principal is alive and the power unrevoked as of signing day, not as of the photocopy's date; a seller's side does the mirror-image homework on its own instrument. Revocation should be as loud as the grant: in writing, communicated to the attorney and known counterparties, and registered where the original was registered, so the record that showed the power also shows its end. The quiet revocation — decided in the family, told to nobody — is how an ex-attorney signs one more deal.

The POA hygiene checklist

1. Special, not general — one property, named acts, an expiry.
2. Executed and authenticated per s.33 (consulate route if abroad).
3. Registered, per Haryana registry practice, where deed execution is authorised.
4. Stamped per the CURRENT table; conveyance duty if for consideration + sale power.
5. Original produced at the registry; principal reachable for confirmation.
6. Revoked in writing when the work ends — and the revocation communicated.