For NRIs and Their Indian Attorneys - Part II

This is in continuation of my earlier post.

Having hit a wall in my efforts to get the flat booked by my son and daughter-in-law registered in their name as their POA (Power of Attorney) holder,  I talked to the Chief Legal Adviser (CLA) who was reluctant to provide my any formats for any additional documents to be obtained.  After much persuasion he dropped a few hints and asked me to consult a lawyer in the matter.  I also did some research on my own.

Finally it was decided to get an Irrevocable Special Power of Attorney executed by both the applicants jointly from USA.  It was deemed prudent to give complete references to the earlier two General POA instruments executed in my favor by each of the two applicants individually. I will publish the draft of the document in my blog later on.

Inquiries showed that this document will have to be notarized in USA and further apostilled by the state secretary of California - the state where the executants reside.  I also checked with an acquaintance who is an officer in the UP government on this.  He gave me some valuable advice.  He said this document has to be further countersigned by the Indian Consulate and that it does NOT require registration in India.  However a small stamp duty has to be paid on it to legalize it for use in India.  He advised me that for this purpose I should take the sealed cover as received from USA to the office of ADM (Revenue) in my district who will authorize the payment of stamp duty.  If you want to read more on this topic you may read this post.

It seems that people in similar circumstances do make the mistake of taking such documents directly to authorities like LDA without getting them legalized as stated in the preceding para.  I wonder what price they are made to pay for this blunder.

So next I took this legalized document to LDA.  It took a long time to traverse the short but tortuous path from the dealing clerk to CLA's table.  As I sat across from CLA, I requested him to take a look at my file.  He took out the document and straightaway looked for the evidence of payment of stamp duty without paying any attention to the contents.  He looked a little crestfallen when he saw that the document had been properly legalized.

This cleared the deck for execution of the deed by LDA and its registration in the sub-registrar's office.  The registration unfortunately took two visits.  It will make the subject matter of a later blog.