Mauritius – Authority to buy or sell property
Power of Attorney for Mauritius requires an apostille
We regularly assist clients with property transactions in Mauritius. Considering its small land size and population (relative to any other destination in the world), we seem to receive a disproportionately high number of enquiries to notarise documents for Mauritius.
If you live in Australia but intend to buy or sell property in Mauritius, it may be easier for you to authorise someone (in Mauritius) to act on your behalf to avoid the logistical issues of dealing with your property from Australia. You can normally give your authority by a power of attorney. Preferably and to ensure that it is legally valid in Mauritius, your power of attorney will have been prepared by your lawyer in Mauritius and sent to you to be signed in front of a notary public in Australia. Your lawyer may post a hard copy version of the document to you but in most cases, they would probably just email it to you to print and sign in Australia. Importantly, if your power of attorney is to be legally valid in Mauritius, it must also need to be notarised and stamped with an apostille from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Your lawyer should be able to guide you as to the formal requirements. If you do not satisfy these requirements, your power of attorney may be useless and not achieve the intended purpose of authorising someone to act on your behalf in Mauritius.
As a leading provider of notary public services in Sydney, our clients include people originally from Mauritius (some have their own property or intend to buy their own property, but an increasing number have property dealings due to an inheritance) as well as intended or existing foreign investors. While Mauritius is traditionally and best known for tourism, it has been transitioning its economy from sugar, textiles and tourism towards luxury real estate, offshore banking and medical tourism. Who knows what the future will bring for this island nation, but the increasing demand for our notary public services to notarise documents for Mauritius indicates a growing trend of financial activity and investment which we suspect will only increase in the future.