CHAPTER XXI
POWERS OF ATTORNEY!

THE capacity to appoint an attorney (and it should be Capacity.
remembered that capacity primarily depends upon domicile)
is practically co-extensive with the capacity to contract.
Thus a power of attorney given by an infant is void [Zouch v.
Parsons (1765) 3 Burr:], except for doing acts by which
the infant himself could be legally bound. On the other
hand, ‘an infant may be an agent, an infant may be the
donee of a power of attorney’ [per James, L.J. in re
D’ Angibau (1880) 15 C.D. 228]; for the acts of an agent as
such are not his own but those of his principal, of whom
he is merely an instrument. As regards married women,
s. 129 of the Law of Property Act 1925 provides that
‘a married woman, whether an infant or not, has power,
as if she were unmarried and of full age, by deed to appoint
an attorney on her behalf for the purpose of executing any
deed or doing any other act which she might herself execute
or do,? and the provisions of this Act relating to instruments
creating powers of attorney apply thereto.” If a woman
marries a foreigner, it may be that by the law of her new
nationality and domicile she loses the capacity to appoint an
attorney, and thereby becomes subject to ‘disability’ within
the meaning of ss. 124, 126 and 127, set out below; otherwise
marriage does not revoke a power.

The capacity of trustees to appoint attorneys is regulated
by ss. 23 and 25 of the Trustee Act, 1925. S. 23 gives an
unqualified right of delegation where the trust property is
out of the United Kingdom (which by s. 68 is defined to mean
Great Britain and Northern Ireland). S. 25 provides that
in other cases a trustee who intends to remain out of the
United Kingdom for more than one month may, by power
of attorney, delegate the execution of trusts, subject to the
following qualifications: if he has only one co-trust:-, the

! For fuller discussion of this subject, and forms and precedents,
see the Manual on Powers of Attorney issued by The Chartered Institute
of Secretaries.

2 Including receipt of income, notwithstanding that she is restrained
from anticipation [Stewart v. Fletcher (1888) 38 C.D 6271,

fa) Infants.

'b) Married
Women.

c) Trustees.