Vermont Special Warranty Deed (Executed by Attorney-in-Fact)

The owner named on this deed never picks up the pen. This is a Vermont special warranty deed executed by an attorney-in-fact: record title stands in one individual's name, an agent appointed under a power of attorney signs on that owner's behalf, and the covenants of title reach no further back than that owner's own years in the chain. The agency shows on the face of the instrument, from the recitals to the notary certificate that names them both.

The statute that sends two instruments to the land records

Vermont binds a deed to the power of attorney behind it with unusual force. Under 27 V.S.A. Section 305(a), a deed made by virtue of a power of attorney is not of any effect, and is not even admissible in evidence, unless the power of attorney is signed, acknowledged, and recorded in the office where the deed is required to be recorded. Deed and power of attorney therefore travel together: the form's third section identifies the power of attorney by its date and by its recording reference in the same municipal land records, whether the instrument went of record years earlier or is entered at the counter minutes ahead of the deed. Section 305(b) honors a power of attorney executed in another state in compliance with that state's law.

Authority under the Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act

Since July 1, 2023, Vermont powers of attorney have been governed by 14 V.S.A. chapter 127, the Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act. A power of attorney created under the chapter is durable by default under Section 4004, and instruments signed before the Act remain valid under Section 4006 if they complied with the law in force when executed. Section 4031(g) supplies the rule the deed recites in its operative language: an act performed by an agent pursuant to a power of attorney binds the principal and the principal's successors in interest as if the principal had performed the act.

A principal on the grantor line, an agent on the By line

The form recites exactly one grantor, the individual who owns the property, and one attorney-in-fact, each in a numbered section, with a dedicated power of attorney section between them. The signature block prints the grantor's name and takes the agent's signature on the By line, and the acknowledgment certificate follows the representative-capacity short form of 26 V.S.A. Section 5368: the record is acknowledged by the named agent as attorney-in-fact for the named grantor, over notary printed-name and commission-number lines. A conditional joining spouse block answers 27 V.S.A. Section 141 where a married grantor's homestead is conveyed. An owner who has left Vermont before the closing, a parent whose adult child manages the sale under a durable power of attorney, and a seller stationed overseas while the house sells present the pattern this deed recites. The form is not set up as a deed the owner signs personally, as a deed from co-owners conveying together, or as a deed from an entity or fiduciary grantor; each of those recites different signature and capacity language than this deed carries.

A warranty the agent signs and the principal makes

No Vermont statute attaches covenants to a deed's operative words, so the instrument spells out its own, with the duty to warrant and defend confined to claims arising by, through, or under the grantor. The attorney-in-fact makes none of those promises personally; the operative language states that the agent executes solely as agent and without personal covenant of title, so the warranty belongs to the principal whose ownership measures it. Vermont title examiners meet this same instrument under the name limited warranty deed. At the town clerk's counter the recorded package runs three instruments deep, the deed at fifteen dollars a page, the power of attorney at the same statewide rate, and the Property Transfer Tax Return, Form PTT-172, that 32 V.S.A. Section 9608 requires before any transfer deed is accepted.

The purchase delivers the special warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example tracing an out-of-state owner's sale of a St. Johnsbury home through her daughter's signature as attorney-in-fact, and a plain language guide to each numbered section, the power of attorney statutes behind the agency, grantee vesting, notarization for a representative signer, and recording with the town clerk. These materials state Vermont law in general terms and are not legal advice; how the rules bear on a particular power of attorney, agency, or title is a question for a Vermont attorney.