Going to be Out of the United States When You Are Closing on the Sale of Your Home or When is Blue Ink Important in a Real Estate Transaction?

A break from my articles about Connect SF, the Real Estate Connect Conference in San Francisco, and back to the real world of selling real estate:

Here is a tale about closing when out of the country, Power of Attorney forms, and the color of the ink.

I have clients moving back to the UK after several years in the US. The husband left in early July and had no plans to come back for the closing of the home sale. I had the escrow company send him a Power of Attorney (POA) form to sign prior to leaving the country. In the State of Washington, there are specific Power of Attorney forms for the sale of real estate. POA forms must be completed by an attorney or an escrow company. Realtors cannot complete the form.

Escrow instructed the seller to have the form notarized and to return the original to escrow to be recorded on title before closing. The notary was instructed to complete the form in blue ink. The seller appointed his wife to represent him since she would be present in the US for closing. All seemed to be handled, the home went on the market, and off they both went to the UK. The sellers had given me a copy of the POA, but had kept the original. (We shall refer to the husband as Jack and the wife as Sue.)

Just before Sue returned to the US, I reminded her to bring the original POA so it could be recorded on title. Sue thought she had a copy of the POA with her in the UK and the original document was in her home in the US. When Sue returned to the US, she couldn't seem to locate the original POA.

I had visions of Jack standing in line for hours at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London to get a new POA form notarized. Only US notaries can sign a POA and they can be found at embassies or consulates. Typically, there are hundreds of people per day at an embassy looking for some assistance from the US government. It can be a real hassle to try to get something notarized at an embassy. Then the form would have to be sent immediately back to the escrow company via Fedex or some other service so the closing of the sale would not be delayed.

After much searching, Sue found another copy of the two page POA. Jack's initials were in blue ink, so she knew the first page of the POA form was an original. The second page had the notary's signature and seal on it. It looked like a copy because it was in black ink. My trusty escrow officer suggested trying to smudge the notary stamp with a slightly damp finger. In her experience, if a notary stamp smudges, it's an original document. If it doesn't smudge, it's a copy. We had a smudge, we had an original!

A couple of things to keep in mind when getting a Power of Attorney form completed:

Escrow had instructed both the seller and the notary to sign the POA in blue ink. With signatures in blue ink, original forms are easily identified. The notary at Jack's bank had not read the escrow company's instructions properly and signed her signature in black ink. The notary signature in black, not blue ink, was the problem. Jack and Sue had an original document the whole time, but because it had been completed by the notary in black ink, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between a copy and the original.


Another tip: There is a specific power of attorney form for a seller and a different form for a buyer. Please talk with your attorney or the escrow company to get the correct form.