POWER OF ATTORNEY IN BULGARIA
Every Bulgarian authority require a written power of attorney (PoA), when a proxy is going to check his rights or manage something in Bulgaria.
Usually the power of attorney has been used in Bulgaria when there is a need to appoint a person (natural or legal) to perform legal actions on behalf of another.
This type of legal document can be particularly prepared by the Bulgarian solicitor and be very useful for foreign entrepreneurs who have businesses in Bulgaria, but they cannot be in the Bulgaria to sign their building permissions or other important documents.
Our law office recommended that the appointed individual is trustworthy c lawyers, because the legal actions which are performed on the basis of the power of attorney have direct legal effect in the legal area of the principal.
The principal is deemed obliged by the legal actions of the legal representative – mostly lawyer or solicitors in Bulgaria.
Some legal actions could be completed by the appointed person, who needs to be an attorney-at-law.
For others, the power of attorney must be prepared explicit; meaning that it should contains the specific and concrete activities, which the legal representative might perform.
You should make a difference with the general power of attorney.
In some instances the power of attorney in Bulgaria must be notarized & legalized with an apostille in order to be deemed valid.
Our lawyers in Bulgaria can help you with any legal procedures and provide you with support concerning the draft up a power of attorney.
Legal content of a power of attorney
The empowered person may receive the rights to performing legal actions & representative power on behalf of the principal.
The content of a power of attorney is thus adjustable according to the specific legal needs of the concrete transactions or the specific type of businesses.
The power of attorney might be issued as a general one or may serve only for a specific purpose
As an example we talks about concluding a legal representation in a contract or before he Notary public in Bulgaria.
Therefore, in Bulgaria, individuals or legal entities may choose to draft up a different type of power of attorney that allows them to appoint a special physical person
This is a person, who shall represent their affairs, when they will no longer be able to doing this.
The requirement for the preparation of power of attorney in Bulgaria includes different legal rights for: extrajudicial legal representation, representation before Bulgarian courts of law or arbitral court in the country.
The representative person must be an attorney-at-law as a legal requirement, to represent the companies before the Bulgarian administrative authorities
We draft documents for the following cases as:
- Entering into agreements, including arbitration agreements,
- Entering into settlements,
- Receiving and issuing payments,
- securities, dealing with matters regarding debt collection
- Documents of liegal dispute for litigation cases in Bulgaria,
- Representation in inheritance cases or even representation in criminal cases
DRAFTING UP A POWER OF ATTORNEY IN BULGARIA
The draft of the power of attorney in Bulgaria must contain complete and correct identifications & legal information regarding concerning the empowered person as well as the principal.
It is recommended also to contain the place and date when it is issued.
It should be borne in mind that the document should contain only the principal’s signature but not of the empowered person.
As we have already mentioned, the signature of the power of attorney should be notarized in some rather frequent cases before the appropriate Notary public or consular section in the Bulgarian embassies abroad.
As civil lawyers in Bulgaria we would like to pay attention on the fact, that the draft of power of attorney could be signed before a Bulgarian notary or a Bulgarian consulate in the Bulgarian embassies.
The authorities in Bulgaria require a notarized power of attorney, which need to be signed before the Bulgarian consulate in Bulgarian language.
If any of the aforesaid actions cannot be performed for some reason, you may sign the power of attorney before a notary public in your home country but in this case you will need to perform additional actions to legalize it in Bulgaria.
Verification of the power of attorney
With the amendments made to the local legislation in 2008 through the acceptance of the new Civil Code, a new requirement has been imposed.
Powers of attorney that create rights for performing real estate transactions in a deed form, such as acquisition-sale contracts related to immovable properties, establishment of building right, or a mortgage, must receive notary witnessing for both signature and content according to art.37 of the local Contracts and Obligations Act (COA), witnessed by local Bulgarian notaries.
This represents an aggregation of two individual verifications for the power of attorney.
The verification of the signature of the authorizer and the verification of the content (clauses) of the document should be performed by the notary public on the same day, with their registration numbers in his/her records following in sequence.
Our support & legal praxis
However, this option will take some weeks or months (depending on whether an Apostille stamp might be put on the document) and you will entail additional costs.
If there are no provisions in the document stating otherwise, a power of attorney’s effect will not expire until the death, loss of capacity to act (due to mental illness) or the termination of the legal entity of either the principal or the empowered person.
However, the power of attorney might be revoked at any time at the sole discretion of the principal.
When you need a limited time power of attorney might also be issued for affairs that have a limited duration.
If you want to open a Bulgarian company, a power of attorney is the tool you need in order to empower another person to deal with all incorporation procedures, including any necessary banking activities.
As conveyancers of Bulgarian property, we are acutely aware of the legal framework governing local properties and the need to prevent property fraud.
In this regard, we note that the imposition of a heavier regime by the local lawmakers is intended to reduce such incidences of fraud.
It is therefore imperative that the provision of art. 37 COA ised, any deviation from may PO property related to the real in document
The thus the local notary public in the area where the property is located?
The first option would be to sign the POA before the nearest Bulgarian consulate office, which has the authority to witness documents with similar powers to the notary public, as stipulated by Bulgarian legislation. Our practice has frequently utilized POAs signed in this manner.
For any matters regarding company registration in Bulgaria, please feel free to contact our lawyer & legal experts.
