POWER OF ATTORNEY

For Greeks living in Australia and having properties or other interests or transactions in Greece, very often arises the need to appoint third parties to handle their affairs. The appointment of an attorney to perform these acts can be done by preparing a power of attorney for Greece.

The power of attorney can provide the attorney the authority to carry out a wide range of legal actions or it can be limited to carrying out only certain legal actions. The legal actions that the attorney can perform should be precisely specified in the power of attorney. The agent cannot act outside the scope of instructions as written within the power of attorney itself. It is therefore very important that the power of attorney is carefully drafted to include all the legal actions the principal wishes to give.

At the same time, however, the power of attorney should be drawn up in accordance with the real wishes of the principal and not contain authorities that they do not wish to provide, such as a power of attorney in which there is also an authority for the sale of real estate, while the principal's true wish is only to give authority for dealing with tax affairs.

When the act for which the power of attorney is granted has been completed, the power of attorney expires automatically. Otherwise, if the principal does not wish to continue this representation relationship, they must sign a revocation of the power of attorney, which must be served on the representative.

The power of attorney can be signed either at the Greek consulate or at an Australian notary public and they have the same legal validity before the Greek authorities.