Ce pouvoir peut être rédigé par n'importe quel notaire mandaté où que ce soit dans le pays, indépendemment de son contenu. Ceci est tout à fait différent de la signature de l'acte notarier pour l'achat d'un bien où seul, le notaire du lieu de l'acquisition est officiellement habilité à rédiger l'acte.
Toutes les procurations doivent être traduites en bulgare par un traducteur assermenté pour être validées. Le traducteur assermenté doit lui aussi signer la procuration. Il est néanmoins possible pour la personne qui demande celle ci de déclarer qu'elle comprend le bulgare et qu'elle est pleinement consciente du contenu du document. Tant la traduction que l'attestation de compréhension du document ne doivent être pris à la légère et aucun notaire n'authentifiera le document s'il est évident que vous n'avez pas la pleine connaissance de son contenu. Vous avez la responsabilité de trouver un traducteur. Même lorsque votre procuration est rédigée en anglais et en bulgare, un traducteur assermenté doit la certifier exacte.
Si vous n'êtes pas présent en Bulgarie, deux moyens sont à votre disposition pour l'enregistrement auprès d'un notaire de votre procuration(ou de tout autre type de document).
Vous pouvez fournir un specimen de signature de directeur d'entreprise, un certificat de mariage et une déclaration relative à la provenance de l'argent destinée à l'acquisition du bien et aller à l' Ambassade de Bulgarie pour faire valider votre document. Si la procuration est à la fois en anglais et en bulgare, alors il pourra être enregistré sans avoir recours à un traducteur assermenté. Bizarrement, personne na encore douté de cette pratique en Bulgarie jusqu'à ce jour.
Si toutefois votre procuration n'est que dans une seule langue, l'attaché d'ambassade vous demandera de trouver votre propre traducteur ou vous recommendera les services de quelqu'un rattaché à l'Ambassade.
L'autre solution si vous n'êtes pas présent en Bulgarie et que l'Ambassade ne vous soit pas facile d'accès est de vous rendre chez un notaire. Attention celui-ci ne sera habilité à authentifier que le document rédigé dans votre langue maternelle, qu'il soit ou non produit dans les deux langues requises. Le problème est qu'une fois que le document a été rédigé.The other solution, if you are not present in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Embassy is not accessible to you, is to visit any notary in the UK. Beware, they will only be able to notarise the English version of the document, regardless of whether it is in one or both languages. The issue here is that once the document has been notarised in the UK, it requires the authorisation in the form of an Apostille from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. An Apostille validates the notarisation in all countries who signed the Hague Convention of 1961, which includes Bulgaria.
For the notarised and apostilled PoA to be accepted in Bulgaria, the Apostille must be officially translated into Bulgarian, although many authorities do not now require this. If the PoA is in English only, the whole document, together with the Apostille, must be translated. The providing of the Apostille is a duty of the notary. Every notary should know that a PoA designated for another country that is a party to the Hague Convention, will only be valid if it is apostilled.
A general PoA which describes the powers of proxy in general terms, without any precision or specifications, will not stand up under Bulgarian law.
Such PoA is not just invalid, but is impossible to use as almost all authorities, individuals and legal entities would require a precise description of relevant actions assigned to the proxy. This refers even more to notaries and especially in relation to conveyancing.
At the start of the Bulgarian property boom, notaries, especially outside Sofia, would accept all sorts of PoAs. For example, a director of a limited liability company empowers a person to accomplish whatever real estate transactions he deems appropriate. This is unlawful, given then a special Resolution has to be adopted by the General Assembly of the Shareholders of a company for any transaction involving the disposal of real estate.
The PoA in favour of the person who will be representing you must describe in as detailed a way as possible the type, location, size and seller of the property. It is not fatal if any of these elements are missing but they must be sufficient to allow the notary to individualise the property beyond doubt.
Very raraly notaries require the price ot be mentiopned in the PoA but if you are not sure about the exact price at the time of making the PoA you should add "at a price that he/she finds appropriate" instead of an undertain figure, because then the notary will be obliged by the set figure and is not allowed to make any changes to it.
Thus, the general rule is to make the PoA as detailed as possible and describe explicitly all possible actions to be allowed. To avoid detailing facts that you are not sure about which may obstruct the proxy in his actions. A general sentence such as "to complete any other actions related to the above" or "to represent me before any other third persons in relation to the above". Considering the generality of these sentences you must, however, be sure that you trust the proxy representing you and only include these phrases if you want to make sure that he will be able to make additional actions, when such actions would be accepted as valid.
A PoA can only be cancelled by the person who empowers it. This has to be done by retrieving the original PoA and through an official notifaction of the notary who has notarised the original PoA.
Many authorities, notaries, physical and juridicial persons and banks, will still accept copies of the PoA without asking to see the original, which makes the protection of your rights difficult. Any actions done by way of a withdrawn PoA would be invalid too but subsequent actions for providing this has happened will have to be taken in order to declare the actions invalid. A possible way to limit the possibility of unscrupulous actions by your proxy is to limit the term of the PoA. But of course it is obvious that such limitation is impossible when a PoA is meant to serve for repetitive actions for an indefinite period of time.
When limiting the term of a PoA you must make sure that the terms for completion of the actions will be sufficient and take into account unexpected obstacles which may appear. You may limit the powers of your proxy by including protective clauses in the PoA such as "No copies of the present PoA are to be accepted unless the original is presented as well".
Roumen Petrov and Asja Mandjukova
GPNG Law Firm, Sofia www.gpgn-law.org
