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

The owner conveying by this Vermont warranty deed never signs it: an attorney-in-fact, named in the deed itself and acting under a recorded power of attorney, supplies both the signature and the acknowledgment for the grantor. What it prepares is a Vermont general warranty deed made by one individual owner of record and executed for that owner by an agent, with the full common law title covenants standing behind the conveyance.

A deed that stands on a recorded power of attorney

Under 27 V.S.A. Section 305(a), a deed made by virtue of a power of attorney is of no 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. The deed gives the power a numbered section of its own, identified by date and by book and page, and restates the rule on its face. A power not yet of record travels to the clerk's counter alongside the deed, and one executed in another state under that state's law remains enforceable here under subsection (b).

Authority measured by the Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act

What the agent may sign comes from the power of attorney itself, read against the Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act, 14 V.S.A. chapter 127. A grant of authority to do all acts the principal could do carries the real property authority of 14 V.S.A. Section 4034. One provision makes the warranty itself work: under Section 4031(g), an act performed by an agent pursuant to a power of attorney binds the principal as if the principal had performed it, so the covenants in this deed are the owner's own promises, and the deed states that the attorney-in-fact makes no personal covenant of title. Another guards the owner: an agent outside the principal's close family may not use the power to move the property to the agent unless the power provides otherwise.

One absent owner, one agent at the closing

The architecture runs agency from the first entry: a grantor section naming the owner of record, a separate section naming the attorney-in-fact, the power of attorney identification, a signature block headed Grantor, By Attorney-in-Fact, and an acknowledgment certificate worded to Vermont's representative capacity short form, naming the agent and the owner the agent binds. An owner settled into a care residence while a daughter closes the sale, a seller posted overseas when the closing date arrives, and an owner who left Vermont years ago and now sells the old camp present the patterns this deed recites. The form recites exactly one individual owner of record acting through one agent; an owner signing personally, two co-owners, an entity, or a trustee each follows a different architecture. And because the grantor remains a natural person, the homestead overlay applies: a conditional joinder section, carrying a signature line and a notary certificate of its own, waits for the spouse of a married grantor under 27 V.S.A. Section 141 and stays blank for an unmarried owner.

Full covenants from a grantor who is not in the room

No Vermont statute implies covenants of title, so this deed spells them out: sole ownership and lawful seisin in fee simple, good right and title to convey, freedom from every encumbrance except the matters its exceptions entry lists, and warranty and defense against the lawful claims and demands of all persons. The promises run from the absent owner to the grantee, and the exceptions entry marks the warranty's outer boundary.

Two instruments at the town clerk's counter

The finished deed goes to the clerk of the town or city where the property lies, at fifteen dollars per page, with the completed Vermont Property Transfer Tax Return, Form PTT-172; under 32 V.S.A. Section 9608 no clerk may receive a deed for recording without that return and its required Act 250 certificate; the buyer bears the tax. This deed brings a second land record instrument with it: the power of attorney recorded in the same office, so the records carry both the conveyance and the authority behind it.

The download includes the blank attorney-in-fact warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing a Rutland County sale from power of attorney recital through acknowledgment, and a plain language guide to each numbered section, the agent signing rules, the forms of co-ownership open to grantees, and the recording and transfer tax filings. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.