Stop buying homes with a POA: You are basically renting a risk

If you think you own a house because you have a Power of Attorney (POA) in your drawer, I have some bad news. You don’t. You are basically a glorified caretaker with a fancy piece of paper that holds zero water in a courtroom when push comes to shove. I’ve seen this play out in Indian real estate circles for years—someone wants to save on stamp duty or bypass a complicated title transfer, so they opt for the 'shortcut' of a POA-based transaction. It feels like a hack, but it’s actually a trap waiting to spring.

Here is the cold, hard reality: a POA is an agency instrument, not a title instrument. It grants you the right to manage, maintain, or sell the property *on behalf of* the owner. It does not transfer the soul of the house—the ownership—to you. A registered sale deed is the only document that anchors your right to the dirt beneath your feet. Without it, you aren't an owner; you're just a temporary manager holding a liability.

Why do people keep falling for this? It’s the siren song of 'frictionless' transactions. Avoiding the registrar's office and cutting out the heavy taxes associated with a sale deed feels like winning. But unit economics in real estate are simple: if you pay peanuts for the legal process, you get monkeys when a dispute arises. If the original owner passes away, their legal heirs can simply invalidate that POA. Suddenly, the money you 'saved' is gone, and you’re caught in a litigation cycle that could last a decade.

For founders and operators looking at real estate as an asset class, treat your due diligence like you would a cap table. If the ownership structure isn't clean, the asset isn't yours. No amount of 'trust' in a handshake deal or a POA can replace the sanctity of a registered deed. We need to stop romanticizing these loopholes.

If you are currently holding a property via POA, my advice is simple: stop waiting. Get a professional to convert that into a proper sale deed immediately, even if it hurts your bank account today. It is essentially an insurance premium against losing your entire capital tomorrow. A high-value asset deserves high-value legal clarity. Are you gambling with your home ownership, or are you actually protecting your biggest investment? I’d love to hear if you’ve seen anyone walk away unscathed from a POA transaction—my bet is, they got lucky, and luck isn't a strategy.