Scope of authority defines the agent type
Agency law sorts agents by how much authority the principal handed over, not by how big the job is.
- A special agent has authority limited to a single transaction. A listing broker is the textbook case: find a ready, able and willing buyer, with no authority to bind the seller to a contract.
- A general agent conducts a continuing range of activities under one ongoing arrangement. A property manager hired to lease, maintain and collect rents on an apartment building is the classic example.
- A universal agent, usually created by a general power of attorney, may do anything the principal could legally do. Neither of the above qualifies.
The trap is reversing the first two, or calling both general agents, which ignores the single-transaction limit on the listing broker.
Georgia rule: executing a power of attorney
A power of attorney assigns authority in writing, and Georgia is specific about signing. Validity takes three signatories:
- The principal's signature, or one made in the principal's presence at the principal's express direction.
- One competent adult witness who is not the named agent.
- A notary or other officer who is neither the witness nor the agent.
Recording in the county deed records is not required for validity. Two witnesses and no notary is the common wrong answer, borrowed from deed execution; Georgia wants the notary.
Georgia rule: durability is the default
Under Georgia's Power of Attorney Act, a power of attorney is durable unless it expressly provides that it terminates on the principal's incapacity. An instrument silent about incapacity therefore survives it.
State the trap outright: automatic termination on incapacity is the older common-law default, and it is what candidates reach for. Silence does not void the instrument and does not convert it into a guardianship, which would require a separate court proceeding. Silence simply leaves the statutory default of durability in place.