Legal Tip 163: Revoking a Power of Attorney

Revoking a Power of Attorney

Sometimes people may appoint someone to act as their attorney. They may later change their mind and wish to make a new appointment of someone else. This does not automatically mean the previous appointment is revoked. Extra steps should be taken to make sure this happens.

To revoke a power of attorney you should do it in writing and it should be witnessed. There is no prescribed form to do this, so you will need to write your own revocation document or get a lawyer to help.

Something like this

I, XXX, of XXX street XXX, hereby revoke the power of attorney given by myself as principal dated XXX appointing XXX as my attorney.

Sign
Witness sign
Name of witness

The witness should be an adult.

Once you have put the revocation in writing this should then be communicated to the attorney that you had previously appointed. If you do not tell them that the appointment has been revoked they will not know that it has and can still act on your behalf.

However once they know that their appointment has been revoked they can no longer legally act for you and it would be an offence to do so.

Therefore you should inform the attorney in writing by posting and emailing a copy of the revocation.

Note that the revocation will be invalid if you do not have ‘capacity’ at that time. If you have not got the capacity to revoke you could apply to the NCAT, NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal to revoke it.

It might also be a good idea to notify your banks and other relevant institutions so that if the attorney does try to make transactions these will be stopped.

If the power of attorney was registered with the Land Titles Office then you can also register the revocation. POA are generally only registered when you want the attorney to deal in land – such as buy or sell property, enter into leases etc.

Seek legal advice before trying this at home.