54 Effect Of Execution Of Second Power Of Attorney

CROSS REFERENCES AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

For revocation, see s. 57 of the Act.

CASE LAW

A man granted a power of attorney to his second wife and son, empowering each to act separately. Later, the man executed a second power of attorney in favour of his second wife and, in the event she was unable or unwilling to act, to his son. The son used the first power of attorney to sever a joint tenancy in property owned by his father and his father’s second wife. The second wife brought an action claiming that the first power of attorney had been revoked by the second and that all of the proceeds from the sale of the property passed to her on her husband’s death. The trial court and the Court of Appeal held that the first power of attorney was valid as the man had neither expressly revoked the first power of attorney nor acted in any way that indicated an intention to revoke. In obiter, the Court of Appeal observed that, even if there had been a revocation in this case, s. 54 would not operate to give life to a power of attorney which had, as between the principal and the attorney, been revoked prior to registration in the land title office but it would operate to protect a bona fide purchaser relying on an instrument executed by an attorney purporting to act under an instrument where no notice of revocation had been filed in the land title office. The Court of Appeal also observed that amendments to the Power of Attorney Act in 2011 now require written notice of revocation although these amendments post-dated the son’s severance of the joint tenancy in 2009 (Houston v. Houston, 2012 BCCA 300).