Buying a BC Home When Someone Else Signs for the Seller

Sometimes the person selling a house is not the person signing for it. A son signs for his mother. A daughter in Toronto signs for a father in North Vancouver. Occasionally a court-appointed committee, or the Public Guardian and Trustee, signs instead of the owner altogether.

None of that is unusual, and none of it is a reason to walk away. But the document behind the signature decides whether you end up owning the house. Four different documents get handed across the table in these deals, and only some of them can sell real property in British Columbia at all.

This article is written for the buyer. It sets out what each document can do, what the Land Title Office will and will not accept, the two dates that matter more than anything printed on the page, and what to ask for and when.

Four documents, and what each one can sell

People use “power of attorney” as a catch-all. It is not. These are four separate legal instruments under four different statutes, and they do different things.

One point before the table. British Columbia starts from the opposite assumption to the one most of these conversations begin with. Section 3 of the Adult Guardianship Act says: “Until the contrary is demonstrated, every adult is presumed to be capable of making decisions about the adult’s personal care, health care and financial affairs.” An elderly seller is presumed capable. The question is never whether they seem frail. It is whether the document in front of you does what it is being used for.

Document	Governing law	Can it be used to sell a BC home?
Ordinary (non-enduring) power of attorney	Power of Attorney Act, Part 1	Yes, but it dies if the owner becomes incapable, and it goes stale after three years for land title purposes
Enduring power of attorney	Power of Attorney Act, Part 2	Yes. This is the usual document. It keeps working after the owner becomes incapable
Representation agreement	Representation Agreement Act	Normally no. The regulation expressly excludes disposing of real property. One pre-2011 class is deemed to be an enduring power of attorney
Committee of the estate, or the Public Guardian and Trustee as statutory property guardian	Patients Property Act; Adult Guardianship Act, Part 2.1	Yes, with the full powers the owner would have had — but the court order may restrict exactly this

Two of those four are regularly handed over for the wrong job. A representation agreement is the most common mistake, and it is dealt with in its own section below.

An enduring power of attorney, and when it starts working

An enduring power of attorney is one that, in the words of section 10 of the Power of Attorney Act, “continues to have effect while, or comes into effect when, the adult is incapable”. That second half matters to a buyer.

Section 14 requires the document to state whether the attorney may act “while the adult is capable” or “only while the adult is incapable”. So some of these documents do nothing at all until the owner loses capacity. They are sometimes called springing powers of attorney.

If the document springs on an event, section 26 requires the owner to “state in the enduring power of attorney how and by whom the event is to be confirmed”. That confirmation is a real document, held by a real person, and your lawyer or notary can ask to see it. A springing power of attorney being used while the seller is still capable is being used too early.

Two execution points are worth knowing, because they are the ones that get skipped.

• The attorney has to sign it too. Section 17 says that before a person may exercise an attorney’s authority, “the person must sign the enduring power of attorney in the presence of 2 witnesses”. The Land Title and Survey Authority’s own filing guidance repeats it, and closes the obvious loophole: “The requirement for the attorney to sign is not met by virtue of the attorney solely executing supporting documentation, such as a ‘proof of age’ declaration.”
• Valid at the bank is not the same as valid for land. Section 16(5) says that if an enduring power of attorney “is to be effective for the purposes of the Land Title Act, the enduring power of attorney must be executed and witnessed in accordance with the Land Title Act”. A document the bank happily accepts can still be unusable to transfer a house.

The three-year rule, and what escapes it

This is the single most misunderstood rule in the area, and the version that circulates is wrong. Section 56(1) of the Land Title Act, Part 6, reads:

For the purpose of this Act, but subject to subsections (2), (3) and (5) and unless the effect of this section is expressly excluded in it, a power of attorney filed in the land title office either before or after this Act comes into force is not valid after 3 years after the date of its execution.

Note what is not there. There is no provision anywhere in section 56 letting someone produce evidence that an old power of attorney is “still operative” and carry on. I read the section in full, twice, looking for it. The escapes are the four listed in the section itself.

Situation	Does the three-year rule bite?	Where it says so
Ordinary power of attorney, nothing special said in it	Yes. Not valid after three years from the date it was signed	s. 56(1)
The document itself says the effect of section 56 is excluded	No. “unless the effect of this section is expressly excluded in it”	s. 56(1)
Enduring power of attorney, filed under section 51	No. It stays valid until a terminating order is filed — subject to everything in the next section of this article	s. 56(1), s. 56(3)
The deal was entered into inside the three years but registered later	No. The dealing is not invalidated	s. 56(2)(b)
Power of attorney executed by a corporation after July 30, 1981	No. Subsection (1) does not apply to it	s. 56(5)

The fourth row is more generous than people assume. What has to happen inside the three years is the dealing, not the registration. A contract signed in year three and completed in year four is not killed by section 56.

There is also a trap in section 54. Signing a new power of attorney does not cancel the old one. The section says a later power of attorney does not revoke the earlier appointment “unless (a) the subsequent power of attorney expressly revokes in whole or in part the previous power of attorney, and (b) section 57 is complied with” — that is, something is actually filed at the Land Title Office. Two live powers of attorney can sit on the index at the same time.

Why a land title search is not proof the document is still alive

You can search powers of attorney at the Land Title Office. Section 53 requires the registrar to keep “an index, to be called an index of powers of attorney”, entered alphabetically against “the names of the principal and the attorney”, each with a serial number. Your lawyer or notary can search it and pull the filed document.

What the index cannot tell you is whether the document still works. The Land Title and Survey Authority says so itself, on its own help page for that search: “You should consult the actual power of attorney document filed with the land title office to verify any power of attorney index information.”

It goes further than that, and this is the paragraph to remember. Section 56(3) exempts a filed enduring power of attorney from the three-year clock, but it does it in careful language: it “remains valid, unless terminated by another means, until an order terminating the enduring power of attorney is filed in the land title office”. The subsection takes nothing away from the other ways the authority can end. It simply stops the three-year clock.

And the other ways are not visible on any register until somebody files something. There are two separate lists in the Power of Attorney Act, and they do different things. Section 30 ends the document. Section 29 ends the attorney’s authority while the document survives.

What has happened	Effect	Section	Would a land title search show it?
The owner has died	The enduring power of attorney terminates	s. 30(4)(b)	No
The owner revoked it in writing	The enduring power of attorney terminates	s. 30(4)(e)	Only if a notice of revocation was filed
A court declared the owner a patient and appointed a committee	Every power of attorney is terminated	s. 30(4)(d); Patients Property Act s. 19	Only if a terminating order was filed
The attorney has gone bankrupt	The attorney’s authority ends	s. 29(2)(d)(iii)	No
The attorney was the owner’s spouse and they have separated	The attorney’s authority ends, unless the document says it continues	s. 29(2)(d)(i), s. 29(3)	No
The attorney has died or become incapable	That attorney’s authority ends; any remaining attorneys may continue unless the document says otherwise	s. 29(2)(d)(ii), s. 29(6)	No

Separation is the one people find surprising. Section 29(4) says a marriage ends for this purpose on the date the parties separated within the meaning of section 3(4) of the Family Law Act. Not the date of a divorce. A date, in the past, that nobody has written down anywhere.

Two provisions pull the other way, and both are in a buyer’s favour.

• A deal already signed stays signed. Section 29(7): “Anything lawfully done by an attorney on behalf of the adult, including making an agreement, remains binding on the adult after the authority of the attorney ends.” If the contract was validly signed and the attorney’s authority ends before completion, the contract does not evaporate. Someone else with authority then has to sign the transfer.
• A buyer who did not know is protected. Section 31(3): “If an attorney exercises authority improperly, the action is deemed to be valid and binding on the adult in respect of persons affected by the exercise of the authority who do not know and have no reason to believe that the exercise of authority is improper.” Read the second half. “No reason to believe” is a due-diligence standard. It protects the buyer who looked. It is thinner cover for the buyer who ignored something odd.

What the attorney has to swear at the signing table

Here is the part almost nothing written for buyers mentions, and it is the real protection in the system. It is in Part 5 of the Land Title Act, not in the power-of-attorney part, which may be why it gets missed.

Section 42(1) requires a transferor’s signature to be witnessed “by an officer who is not a party to the instrument”. Then section 45 says that when the signer is acting under a power of attorney, the officer’s signature is itself a certification that the attorney appeared and acknowledged a specific list of things. The section opens with the word that carries all the weight — a “subsisting” power of attorney — and then requires the attorney to acknowledge that at the time the instrument was executed they had

no knowledge of the death or bankruptcy of the transferor, or of the revocation of the power by the transferor, and (A) if the power of attorney is not an enduring power of attorney, the individual had, at that time, no knowledge of the mental infirmity of the transferor, or (B) in the case of an enduring power of attorney, the individual had, at that time, no knowledge of the suspension or termination of the individual’s authority under any enactment

So the system does not rely on the register being current. It relies on the attorney standing in front of a lawyer or a notary and personally acknowledging that, as far as they know, nothing in that list has happened. Section 45 also requires the attorney to confirm that any change to their authority has been filed.

Section 45(2) then prescribes how they sign: “An attorney who is an individual must execute the instrument by signing the attorney’s name and must indicate on the instrument that the attorney is the attorney of the transferor.” The Land Title and Survey Authority lists getting this wrong among the common defects it sees — a Form A, B or C where the power of attorney’s number or name is missing from the execution block.

Who can be that officer? Part 5 does not list them. Section 41 defines an officer as a person before whom an affidavit may be taken under section 42(3), and section 42(3) sends you to the Evidence Act. Section 60 of that Act makes a list of people commissioners for taking affidavits by virtue of their office, including “practising lawyers as defined in section 1 (1) of the Legal Profession Act” and “notaries public”. In practice, in British Columbia: a practising BC lawyer or a BC notary public, and never a party to the instrument.

Two attorneys named? By default both must sign

Parents often name two or three children. Section 18(4) lets the owner give each attorney “a different area of authority” or “all or part of the same area of authority”. Where they share an area, section 18(5) sets the default:

If all or part of the same area of authority is assigned to more than one attorney, the attorneys must act unanimously in exercising the authority, unless the adult does one or more of the following in the enduring power of attorney: (a) describes the circumstances in which the attorneys need not act unanimously; (b) sets out how a conflict between attorneys is to be resolved; (c) authorizes an attorney to act only as an alternate attorney…

Unanimously. So if two siblings share the authority and only one signs your contract, the default position is that it has not been validly signed. The document can change that, in the three ways listed, but somebody has to read it and see which.

Two narrowings, so this is not overstated. Unanimity only arises where attorneys share an area of authority. If each was given a different area, each acts alone in theirs. And section 29(6) lets remaining attorneys continue if one of them drops out, unless the document says otherwise.

A representation agreement is not a power of attorney

This is the one that most often arrives in place of the document you actually need, and the answer is clearer than most people expect. It just is not in the Act — it is in the regulation.

Section 9 of the Representation Agreement Act lets an adult authorise a representative to do things “in relation to the personal care or health care of the adult”. Finances do not appear in section 9 at all. So a section 9 agreement cannot sell a house on its face.

Section 7 is the one with money in it. It covers “routine management of the adult’s financial affairs, including, subject to the regulations” paying bills, receiving income, buying food and accommodation and personal care services, and making investments. Note the words “subject to the regulations”. The regulation is where the line is drawn.

B.C. Reg. 199/2001, the Representation Agreement Regulation, section 2(2), says this:

For greater certainty, the activities that under subsection (1) constitute “routine management of the adult’s financial affairs” do not include any of the following: … (c) purchasing or disposing of real property on the adult’s behalf;

What a section 7 representation agreement does cover	What the regulation takes out
Paying bills; receiving and depositing pension and other income	Purchasing or disposing of real property on the adult’s behalf
Making investments; disposing of the adult’s investments	Taking out a new loan, including a mortgage
Selling personal or household effects, including a motor vehicle	Acting as guarantor for a loan, posting security or indemnifying a third party
Obtaining accommodation for the adult “other than by the purchase of real property”	Using, renewing or obtaining a credit card or line of credit
Renewing or refinancing an existing mortgage, if the principal does not go up and nothing new is registered	Revoking or amending a beneficiary designation

The fourth and fifth rows show how carefully the line is drawn. A representative can find the adult somewhere to live, as long as it is not by buying a property. They can renew the existing mortgage, but only if the principal does not rise and nothing new goes on the title.

The People’s Law School, a legal education charity, puts the same point in plainer words on its page about representation agreements, reviewed for legal accuracy in May 2019: “A representative can help with the routine management of financial affairs… But some decisions such as selling or buying a home or taking out a loan are not covered.”

The one old exception, and the people who hold it are the ones selling now

There is a class of older agreement that is treated as a power of attorney, and it would be wrong to tell you otherwise. Section 44.3 of the Representation Agreement Act defines “representation agreement” for its own purposes as one “made before the repeal, on September 1, 2011, of section 9 (1) (g)” of that Act. For those agreements, where the agreement authorised the representative to exercise the powers of an attorney, section 44.3(2) says:

that part of the representation agreement that authorizes the representative to exercise the powers of an attorney is deemed to be an enduring power of attorney under Part 2 of the Power of Attorney Act

And the Land Title Act recognises it directly. Section 51(2.1) refers to “a representation agreement deemed to be an enduring power of attorney under section 44.3 of the Representation Agreement Act”. The Land Title and Survey Authority’s filing guidance has a whole branch for representation agreements, requiring four certificates to be uploaded with the agreement: a certificate of representative or alternate representative, a certificate of monitor if the agreement names one, a certificate of person signing for the adult if someone signed on their behalf, and a certificate of witness.

So the honest version is this. A representation agreement made today cannot sell the home. An agreement made before September 1, 2011 that gave the representative the powers of an attorney may be able to. The adults who signed those agreements fifteen or more years ago are exactly the people selling houses now, so it is worth asking the date rather than the title of the document.

A power of attorney signed outside Canada

On the North Shore this comes up constantly. An owner is abroad, or a parent abroad is selling a property here, and a power of attorney is signed in front of a lawyer or a notary in another country.

Read on its own, section 38 of the Power of Attorney Act sounds generous:

Subject to any limitation or condition set out in the regulations, a power of attorney that (a) applies or continues to apply when an adult is incapable, (b) was made in a jurisdiction outside British Columbia, and (c) complies with any prescribed requirements is deemed to be an enduring power of attorney made under this Act.

The whole question is in those first five words. The prescribed requirements are in section 4 of the Power of Attorney Regulation, B.C. Reg. 20/2011, and they are narrow. The owner must have been, when the document was made, “ordinarily resident (i) outside British Columbia but within Canada, or (ii) within the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia or New Zealand”.

That is a closed list. It is not a list of examples. If the person who signed the power of attorney was ordinarily resident somewhere outside that list when they signed it, section 38 does not deem it an enduring power of attorney in British Columbia at all. Nothing on the face of the document will tell you this.

Requirement	What it means in practice	Where it is
Where the owner ordinarily lived when signing	Elsewhere in Canada, or the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand. Nowhere else qualifies	Reg. s. 4(2)(b)
Validly made where it was made	Valid under the law of the place the owner lived and the place the document was made	Reg. s. 4(2)(c)
Still effective there	It must still be effective in the jurisdiction where it was made	Reg. s. 4(2)(d)
A solicitor’s certificate	A certificate in the form in the Schedule, “from a solicitor permitted to practise in the jurisdiction in which the deemed enduring power of attorney was made”	Reg. s. 4(3)
Age	Both the owner and the attorney must be at least 19 years of age	Reg. s. 4(4)(b)

The Schedule to the regulation sets out the form, headed “Certificate of Extrajurisdictional Solicitor”, and it is “to be completed by a solicitor in the jurisdiction in which an extrajurisdictional enduring power of attorney was made”. Without it, section 4(3) says the document is not effective in British Columbia. A translation and a notary’s stamp are not that certificate.

Separately from all of that, the witnessing has to work. Section 42(3) of the Land Title Act allows an affidavit to be taken “inside or outside British Columbia” before a person who may take one under the Evidence Act, and section 63 of the Evidence Act lists who that is abroad. The route almost everyone ends up using is paragraph (f): “a notary public acting in the territorial limits of the notary’s authority, certified under the notary’s hand and official seal”. A Canadian consular officer is also on the list.

And the Land Title and Survey Authority adds one more document. Its filing guidance, last modified June 19, 2025, says: “Extra-jurisdictional certificates must be provided with an enduring Power of Attorney that has been prepared outside British Columbia, does not reference the BC Power of Attorney Act, and does not include the Officer Certification Statement required under Part 5 of the Land Title Act.”

If you are buying from a seller whose signing is happening overseas, the practical advice is short. Get the question of whether the document can work here answered by a BC lawyer or notary before you remove your subjects, not after. It is cheaper to find out in week one.

One related provision, for a different situation. If a seller signs here but does not read English, section 47 of the Land Title Act requires the officer to certify that the person acknowledged “that the contents and effect of the instrument were sufficiently communicated to the individual and that the individual fully understood the contents of the instrument”. That is a safeguard, not an obstacle, and it is worth knowing it exists.

When a committee takes over

A committee is not a power of attorney with a different name. A power of attorney is something the owner chose while capable. A committee is imposed, and it replaces the arrangements the owner made.

Under the Patients Property Act, section 2(1), a near relative or another person may apply to the Supreme Court for an order declaring a person incapable of managing their affairs. Section 3(1)(b) requires the court to read “the affidavits of 2 medical practitioners”. Section 6(1) then lets the court “appoint any person to be the committee of the patient”.

There is a second route, and the difference between the two is the most important thing in this section. Under Part 2.1 of the Adult Guardianship Act, a health authority designate can issue a certificate of incapability, and section 32(5) makes the Public Guardian and Trustee the adult’s statutory property guardian “as of the date on which the certificate of incapability was signed”. No court, no two medical affidavits. One of the conditions, in section 32(3)(e), is that the adult “has not granted power over all of the adult’s financial affairs to an attorney under an enduring power of attorney”, or has but the attorney is not complying with their duties.

Now the part that decides whether a signature is good. The two routes do opposite things to an existing power of attorney.

	Court-appointed committee	Public Guardian and Trustee as statutory property guardian
How it happens	Supreme Court order, on affidavits of two medical practitioners	A health authority designate signs a certificate of incapability
Effect on an existing power of attorney	Terminated. “every power of attorney given by the person is terminated”	Suspended. “every power of attorney that was given by the person” is suspended
Effect on a representation agreement	Terminated, “unless the court orders otherwise”	Every provision in respect of property is suspended
Can it come back?	No	Yes. If the Public Guardian and Trustee decides it need not manage the property, “the suspension of the power of attorney … ends”
Where it says so	Patients Property Act s. 19; Power of Attorney Act s. 30(4)(d)	Patients Property Act s. 19.1; Power of Attorney Act s. 30(3)

Section 19 of the Patients Property Act is headed “Effect on power of attorney or representation agreement of person becoming a patient by court order”, and it says, in full: “On a person becoming a patient as defined in paragraph (b) of the definition of ‘patient’ in section 1, (a) every power of attorney given by the person is terminated, and (b) unless the court orders otherwise, every representation agreement made by the person is terminated.”

So the consequence for a buyer is a question about dates. If a committeeship order was made before your contract was signed, the son’s power of attorney was already dead when he signed. And on the other route the power of attorney is only suspended, which means the date matters even more: the same document can be unusable in March and usable again in June, depending on a decision the Public Guardian and Trustee made in between.

What a committee of the estate can do is broad. Section 15(1) gives the committee “all the rights, privileges and powers with regard to the estate of the patient as the patient would have if of full age and of sound and disposing mind”. Section 21 is the buyer’s comfort: “Everything done by a committee in the exercise of the committee’s powers under this Act has the same effect with respect to all other persons as if done by the patient at a time when the patient was of full age and of sound and disposing mind.”

One widely repeated line is only half right. Section 15(2) says that “For investing money, a committee is a trustee within the meaning of the Trustee Act”. Only for investing money. A committee is not generally a trustee, and the power to sell comes from section 15(1), not from trustee law.

But the Act is not the last word, and this is the thing to check. Section 16(1) lets the court, in the same order, “attach conditions or restrictions on the committee’s exercise of certain rights, privileges or powers specified in the order, including requiring the written consent of the Public Guardian and Trustee prior to the committee’s exercise of any right, privilege or power”. The statute gives full power. The order can take it away. Read the order, not just the Act.

Selling through a private committee

If a family member has been appointed committee of the estate — a “private committee” — the Public Guardian and Trustee has published what it expects of them. That page is the most useful document in this whole area for a buyer, because it tells you what has to happen before your deal can close, in the Public Guardian and Trustee’s own words.

Start with whether consent is needed at all. The page says: “The PGT reviews the sale of real property owned by the adult for whom you are trustee. If there are court order restrictions on the real property, the review is done before the sale is complete. If there are no restrictions, then we review the transaction during the review of your accounts.”

So a restricted sale needs consent before completion. An unrestricted one gets looked at afterwards. And restrictions are common: “It is common for the sale of real property to be restricted by the court order that appointed you as committee of estate.”

Step	What the Public Guardian and Trustee says	What it means for your timeline
Appraisal	“It’s important to get an appraisal from a designated, independent appraiser.” And: “A realtor is not considered an independent appraiser.”	Needs to be ordered early. It is a separate professional, not a market evaluation
What goes in the consent request	“A copy of the Contract of Purchase and Sale that is subject to PGT approval” and “An appraisal from an independent appraiser dated less than 6 months ago”	Your contract should carry a condition making it subject to that approval
How long	“A minimum of 5 working days is needed to review and respond, and failure to provide all of the necessary documents will delay completing the review process.”	Build it into the subject-removal date, with room to spare
What a reasonable offer looks like	“Above, at or near the appraised value of the property” and “Made to someone who is not a family member or yourself”	A low offer, or one from a relative of the committee, may not be approved
What may be refused	An offer “For less than the appraised value”, “To someone who is known to the committee or adult”, “Made without a licensed realtor”, or with “Complex legal or ownership issues”	Each of these is a reason to ask the question before subject removal
Title transfer	“The PGT will send a letter addressed to the Land Title Survey Authority to the lawyer involved in the transaction, giving consent for the title to be transferred when the following are received: The Form A Transfer…”	Title does not move until that consent letter exists

If consent is refused, the page says the committee “can apply for a court order to approve it”. That is not a two-week process. If you are buying in this situation, a longer completion date is not a concession; it is realism.

Where the Public Guardian and Trustee is itself the committee of the estate, rather than reviewing a family member, its own fee is set by regulation. B.C. Reg. 312/2000, Schedule item 8(d)(i), charges “4% of the gross sale price of real property sold by an agent”, payable from the patient’s estate. That is the Public Guardian and Trustee’s fee for acting as committee. It is not a charge on a private committee’s sale, and it is not something a buyer pays.

The Public Guardian and Trustee can be reached at 700–808 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 3L3. Its line for committee of estate and person services in Vancouver is 604-775-1001, and Private Committee Services is 604-660-1500. Its general email address is mail@trustee.bc.ca. Confirm anything time-sensitive with them directly, because published processes change.

What if the house is left to someone in the will?

Here is a situation that sounds alarming and is not your problem. Section 19(3)(d) of the Power of Attorney Act says an attorney must “not dispose of property that the attorney knows is subject to a specific testamentary gift in the adult’s will, except if the disposition is necessary to comply with the attorney’s duties”.

So if the house is specifically left to a particular person in the owner’s will, and the attorney sells it anyway, the attorney may be in breach of duty. What that does not do is invalidate the sale. Nothing in the Act makes the dealing void for a breach of section 19.

The remedy runs against the estate, not against your title. Section 48(2) of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act:

If property that is the subject of a gift in a will is disposed of by a nominee, the beneficiary of the gift is entitled to receive from the will-maker’s estate an amount equivalent to the proceeds of the gift as if the will had contained a specific gift to the beneficiary of that amount.

“Nominee” is defined in section 1(1) of that Act to include a person granted power over financial affairs under the Patients Property Act, an attorney acting under an enduring power of attorney, and a representative acting under a section 7(1)(b) representation agreement. The definition also reaches certain appointments made under federal legislation.

Section 48(3) carves out two cases: the subsection does not apply if “the disposition is made to carry out instructions given by the will-maker at a time when the will-maker was legally capable of giving instructions”, or if “a contrary intention appears in the will”.

The Public Guardian and Trustee’s own guidance points private committees in the same direction. On keeping records of a sale, it says doing so “will also allow the adult’s executor to comply with section 48 of the Wills Estates and Succession Act (WESA) after the adult dies”. The obligation sits with the executor, later. Not with you, now.

If the seller signed personally and was not capable

This is the one situation in the article where a buyer carries a real legal burden, so it is worth reading slowly. It applies where there was no attorney and no committee — the owner signed for themselves.

Section 60.2 of the Adult Guardianship Act, which sits in Part 4 of that Act:

(1) If an adult transfers an interest in the adult’s property while the adult is incapable, the transfer is voidable against the adult unless (a) the interest was transferred for full and valuable consideration, and that consideration was actually paid or secured to the adult, or (b) at the time of the transfer, a reasonable person would not have known that the adult was incapable. (2) In a proceeding in respect of a transfer described in subsection (1), the onus of proving a matter described in subsection (1) (b) is on the person to whom the interest was transferred.

Three things to take from it. First, the word is voidable, not void. The transfer is not automatically nothing; it can be set aside.

Second, paragraph (a) is the ordinary buyer’s answer. An arm’s-length sale at a fair price, with the money actually paid to the seller, satisfies section 60.2(1)(a), and the transfer is not voidable at all. Most purchases never come near this provision.

Third, if you ever need to rely on paragraph (b) instead — that a reasonable person would not have known — subsection (2) puts the onus of proving it on you, the buyer. That is unusual and it is the reason to pay a fair price, document what you were told, and not accept a bargain that is being explained away.

What to ask for, in order

None of this needs a buyer to become an expert. It needs the right documents requested early, by the right person, which is your lawyer or notary, not you.

When	What to ask for	Why
Before you write the offer	What exactly is the document — an enduring power of attorney, an ordinary one, a representation agreement, or a committeeship order? And what is its date?	The type and the date decide almost everything else in this article
Before you write the offer	If it is a committeeship order, a copy of the order itself	Patients Property Act s. 16 lets the court restrict the power to sell, or require the Public Guardian and Trustee’s written consent
Before you write the offer	If the signing is happening abroad, confirmation that the Power of Attorney Regulation s. 4 conditions are met, including the extrajurisdictional solicitor’s certificate	Without it, the document is not effective in British Columbia
In the contract	Where a private committee is selling under a restricted order, a condition making the sale subject to the Public Guardian and Trustee’s approval	The Public Guardian and Trustee asks for exactly that, plus five working days and a recent independent appraisal
During your subject period	A land title search of the index of powers of attorney, and the filed document itself	The index gives a serial number; the Authority itself says to consult the actual document
During your subject period	If more than one attorney is named, confirmation of who has to sign	Power of Attorney Act s. 18(5) makes unanimity the default where they share authority
At completion	That the Form A is executed the way Land Title Act s. 45(2) requires, naming the power of attorney	A missing power of attorney number in the execution block is on the Authority’s own list of common defects

A note on what is not on that list. Asking a seller’s family to prove a parent is capable is not your job, it is not reasonable, and it starts from the wrong presumption — the Adult Guardianship Act presumes capability until the contrary is demonstrated. What is reasonable is asking what document the signature is coming from. That is a paperwork question, and nobody should mind it.

One more practical point on filing. Section 51(1) of the Land Title Act says an instrument executed by an attorney “must not be registered unless” the original power of attorney, or a certified true copy from one of three specified certifiers, is filed with the registrar. Not a photocopy. Not a scan emailed by a relative. If that document is still in a drawer in another country, that is a timing problem worth knowing about in week one.

What the regulator has fined licensees for

This is not theoretical. A discipline committee of the Real Estate Council of British Columbia made a consent order dated 14 August 2020, published on 7 October 2020 and now hosted by the BC Financial Services Authority, against two licensees in a sale involving a power of attorney.

Two of the findings are directly on this subject. The licensees “failed to recommend that Seller A obtain independent legal advice about using a power of attorney that was several years old in order to transact in the property on behalf of Seller B”. And they “did not promptly advise their managing broker upon learning that the power of attorney may not be valid to complete a trade in the property”.

They were ordered to be jointly and severally liable to pay a discipline penalty of $20,000, plus enforcement expenses of $1,500, and each to complete a remedial education course.

Read what the decision does and does not say. It does not say the seller lacked capacity, and it does not find the power of attorney invalid — the finding is that it “may not be valid”. That is the point. The regulator’s concern was that nobody sent the question to a lawyer, and nobody escalated it once it was spotted. Which is the whole argument for treating this as a documents question, early, rather than a judgment call at completion.

Worth adding: the BC Financial Services Authority has published guidance of its own for licensees on vulnerable clients, dated 18 August 2022, which tells licensees to ask “whether anybody holds power of attorney or has been appointed as a legal representative or substitute decision-maker”, to “obtain a true copy of the power of attorney, representation agreement, or advance directive for their file”, and to read it “to confirm you are dealing with the person who has the legal authority to deal with the property”.

What I could not confirm

Four things, stated plainly, because an article like this is worth less if it hides its gaps.

• What the Registrar’s own commentary says. The Land Title Practice Manual is the detailed practice guide the Authority’s own pages point to for powers of attorney, at volume 1, chapter 6, paragraph 6.3. It is published by the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia and I could not read its commentary. Everything above comes from the statutes, the regulations and the Authority’s public pages.
• Whether anything has changed the July 2024 affidavit practice since. The Authority announced on 10 July 2024 that the Registrar “will no longer require an enduring power of attorney to be supported by an affidavit confirming the matters set in section 16(6) of the Power of Attorney Act”. I confirmed that notice is live and dated. I could not rule out a later change in the period after it that is not in the Authority’s current news feed. Note also that this did not remove everything: the Authority’s filing guidance, last modified June 19, 2025, still requires “a statutory declaration regarding proof of attorney’s age”.
• Court decisions. I could not read BC Supreme Court judgments on this subject from the sources available to me, so this article quotes no judicial reasoning and cites no case. Where a point rests on a court’s decision rather than a statute, I have left it out rather than describe a judgment I have not read.
• Tribunal decisions. I could find no Civil Resolution Tribunal decision about a sale going wrong because a power of attorney had ended or an attorney exceeded their authority. That is “I could find none”, not “there are none” — the Tribunal’s search was not reachable, and its monetary limit makes a dispute of this kind unlikely to land there anyway.

Questions buyers ask

Can a power of attorney sell property in BC?

Yes, if the document actually authorises it and is still operative, and if it can be filed at the Land Title Office. An enduring power of attorney is the usual vehicle. An ordinary one works too, but it ends if the owner becomes incapable, and for land title purposes it goes stale three years after signing unless the document excludes that rule.

Can the attorney sell the house to themselves?

Not unless the document expressly allows it. The Land Title and Survey Authority lists among its common defects a case where “The attorney executes a transfer to himself/herself without the Power of Attorney expressly authorizing it.” Separately, section 20 of the Power of Attorney Act only lets an attorney receive a gift or loan from the adult’s property “if the enduring power of attorney permits”, and section 20(3)(a) says that permission “must be express”.

What happens if the seller dies before completion?

The enduring power of attorney terminates on the owner’s death, under section 30(4)(b). But section 29(7) keeps the contract alive: “Anything lawfully done by an attorney on behalf of the adult, including making an agreement, remains binding on the adult after the authority of the attorney ends.” The deal survives; the question becomes who now has authority to sign the transfer, which is an estate question and one to put to your lawyer or notary straight away.

Does the name on the power of attorney have to match the title exactly?

Essentially yes. The Authority’s filing guidance says the “name of the donor in the Power of Attorney and the name of the registered owner must be the same”, and that where there are variations, the document may identify the donor by all variations. Name mismatches are one of the most common reasons these filings are rejected, and a rejection at completion is an expensive place to discover it.

Is a committee the same thing as a power of attorney?

No. A power of attorney is chosen by the owner while capable. A committee is appointed, either by the Supreme Court under the Patients Property Act or through a certificate of incapability that makes the Public Guardian and Trustee the statutory property guardian. A court-appointed committeeship terminates every power of attorney the owner gave. Both can sell real property, but a committee’s powers may be restricted by the order that appointed them.

Should I just walk away from these deals?

No, and that would be an overreaction. These sales complete every week in BC. What they need is a few extra questions in the first week, answered by a lawyer or a notary rather than by assumption, and a subject period and completion date that leave room for the answers to come back.

Read next

• Buying a house from an estate in BC: what a buyer needs to check — the related situation where the owner has died and an executor is selling.
• Title insurance in BC: what it covers, and what it will not pay for — including how it treats defects in the authority to sign.
• Do you need a lawyer or a notary to buy a home in BC? — who does the searching and the officer certification described above.
• From accepted offer to completion day in BC — where the extra time these files need actually goes.
• The property disclosure statement in BC: what a buyer can rely on — and what happens when the person signing it has never lived in the house.
• All of my North Shore buying and selling guides

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General information only, not advice about a specific property, a specific document or a specific transaction. Whether a particular power of attorney, representation agreement or committeeship order authorises a particular sale is a legal question that turns on the wording of that document, and only a lawyer or notary who has read it can answer it. Numbers, forms, fees, practice requirements and legislation change. Every statute and regulation quoted here was read at its source on 22 October 2026, and each printed “current to October 13, 2026” on the file consulted. Confirm anything that matters with the authority that owns it — the Land Title and Survey Authority for filing and practice requirements, the Public Guardian and Trustee for committeeship and consents — and take professional legal advice before you rely on any of it. Last reviewed October 2026.

Written by Tom Jahed, licensed REALTOR®, Vanak Realty, North Vancouver.