Kilkis wrote:It is possible to get a Power of Attorney when you are in the UK but it is more complicated so I would advise doing it here in Greece.
Warwick
Unless things have changed the spouse who is leaving first can grant P of A to the remaining partner. It's now 10 years since we had exactly that situation. The Power of Attorney had to be done with a Notary and we were introduced to one by our regular lawyer. We had everything in place, deposit paid etc., etc and were simply waiting for an final appointment to be made for completion. The P of A took about half an hour. As the secretary went off to type the document the notary (female) laughed and said to my wife, "You do realise that when you've signed your husband can take all the money and run?
Ours was done in a hurry. We weren't leaving Crete but my wife was anxious about the deteriorating health of her mother so, "just in case" we arranged the P of A. The very same evening my wife received a message that mother was on her way to hospital so next morning Mrs P was on the first flight UKwards. A month later she was still in UK when the meeting for completion was arranged. On the day I met our lawyer and we headed off to a notary's office but not the notary who had done the PoA.
Half way there my lawyer casually dropped a bombshell. "I had a call from the notary who did the PoA this morning. The details were all entered in the ledger but she forgot to get your wife's signature on the actual document." My reaction was something like, "So why the hell are we going to this meeting if I can't sign on her behalf without the authorising document?" Came the reply, "That's all fixed. I've spoken to the buyer's lawyer and we've both consulted with both notaries and agreed that everyone knows the situation and what everyone wants so we'll go ahead and Mrs. P can sign the paper when she comes home." So we did just that.
Eight months later Mrs. P came home and soon after that we contacted our lawyer. "When should Mrs. P go to sign the PoA?" "Oh, don't bother with that. Everything is as planned and nobody will ever know the document wasn't signed."