Signature-certified powers of attorney cannot sell property in Vietnam

For a family abroad with land, a house, a company or a bank account in Vietnam, the form of an authorisation decides what a relative may do. A signature-certified power of attorney covers only unpaid matters with no compensation owed by the attorney and no property transferred, in four listed cases.

A sale of land or a house needs a notarised or certified contract; where a relative signs it, the texts read together indicate that the authorisation must itself be notarised or certified.

Two instruments with different reach

Vietnamese law has two forms. The first is a power of attorney (giấy ủy quyền) signed by the principal alone, on which an official certifies the signature.

Under Article 24(4)(d) of Decree 23/2015/NĐ-CP on certification, that route applies only where the authorisation is unpaid, the attorney owes no compensation and the matter does not concern transferring ownership of property or the right to use real estate.

Article 25(4) bars signature certification on any document whose content is a transaction, except that power of attorney and any case where the law provides otherwise. The decree, amended most recently by Decrees 280/2025/NĐ-CP and 18/2026/NĐ-CP, has not been replaced, and no amendment to Article 24(4)(d) was found in the amending decrees read for this article.

The Ministry of Justice’s Circular 01/2020/TT-BTP, in force according to the ministry’s legal database, narrows that route to four cases: filing or collecting papers on the principal’s behalf, unless the law forbids it; collecting a pension, mail or allowances; looking after a house; and a household member’s loan from the Bank for Social Policies.

Any other authorisation, under Article 14(3), may not be signature-certified and goes through the procedure for certifying contracts and transactions.

The second form is an authorisation contract (hợp đồng ủy quyền) between principal and attorney, defined in Article 562 of the Civil Code, with remuneration only if agreed or set by law.

Where such a contract is notarised or certified, a notary office notarises it, or a certifying authority certifies it as a transaction. Not every authorisation contract must take that form: the Housing Law exempts an authorisation to manage a house.

How long it lasts and how it ends

Under Article 563 of the Civil Code, the parties or the law set the term of an authorisation contract; where neither does, the contract is valid for one year from the date the authorisation was established.

Article 140 is a separate rule on representation: where the authorising document, a decision, a charter or the law does not fix the term, representation tied to a specific transaction lasts until that transaction ends, and representation not tied to one lasts one year from when the right of representation arises.

Either side may end an authorisation contract at any time (Article 569). Under a paid authorisation, the side that ends it compensates any damage, and a principal also pays for work done; under an unpaid one, it gives reasonable notice.

The principal must tell third parties in writing; otherwise contracts the attorney made with them remain effective unless they knew or should have known. Representation also ends when the principal or the attorney dies (Article 140(3)).

No provision was found setting a validity period for the certified or notarised document itself.

A sale needs notarisation or certification, managing a house does not

Under Article 27(3) of the Land Law 2024, contracts transferring, donating, mortgaging or contributing land-use rights as capital must be notarised or certified, with listed exceptions. Article 164(1) of the Housing Law 2023 requires the same for a sale, lease-purchase, donation, exchange, capital contribution or mortgage of a house.

Article 164(2) exempts, among others, an authorisation to manage a house, unless the parties want it notarised or certified. A separate article covers the land rights a Vietnamese living abroad may hold.

No provision found says in terms that a power to sell must itself be notarised or certified. Read together, however, the texts point that way.

The signature-certified power is barred for transfers of property and land-use rights. The Law on Notarization (Article 44) and Decree 280/2025 name authorisation documents on real-estate rights as acts a notary or certifying authority performs, and exempt them from the province and residence limits that otherwise apply. The sale contract the attorney signs must be notarised or certified.

The Law on Notarization 46/2024/QH15 has applied since 1 July 2025. Law 04/2026/QH16 amends it from 1 January 2027.

The amending law rewrites Article 57, keeping the two-office route. Compared with the current text, its first clause no longer carries the duty to send an original back to the principal’s notary. Article 73(1), on what embassies may notarise, is unchanged.

Signing at a Vietnamese embassy or consulate

Article 73(1) of the Law on Notarization lets Vietnam’s diplomatic and consular missions notarise wills, renunciations of inheritance, all types of authorisation documents and other transactions, but not contracts to sell, exchange, transfer, donate, lease, mortgage or contribute as capital real estate in Vietnam.

Missions may also certify copies, signatures and translators’ signatures (Decree 23, Article 5(3), as amended by Decree 280/2025).

Where principal and attorney cannot attend the same notary office, Article 57 lets each go to a notary of their choice: the principal’s notary certifies the offer to authorise, and the attorney’s notary certifies the acceptance on the same original and completes the notarisation.

Article 57 speaks of notary offices. Article 73(3) has missions notarise under the same chapter of procedure, but whether the split covers a Vietnamese mission and a notary office in Vietnam is not established.

The US embassy’s undated page on property authorisations describes a similar split: where the attorney is not in the United States, the principal signs there and has the signature certified, and the contract has legal effect only after the attorney signs it at a notary office in Vietnam.

The German embassy’s guide of 22 April 2025 says to use the contract form, not the power-of-attorney form, for transactions on property.

Missions charge in US dollars under Circular 264/2016/TT-BTC as amended by Circular 113/2021/TT-BTC. Notarising or certifying a contract or transaction other than the listed real-estate deals costs USD 50 per copy, and an authorisation contract therefore falls under this item.

Certifying a signature on a document in Vietnamese costs USD 10 per copy, as does legalisation.

The Ministry of Justice’s database lists Circular 149/2026/TT-BTC, in force from 23 November 2026, as amending several Ministry of Finance fee circulars. It was not read for this article, and whether it touches Circular 264/2016 has not been established.

Embassy pages that lag the law

Some mission pages, as accessed on 12 October 2026, describe superseded rules or contradict themselves.

• The US embassy’s pages carry no date. Its guidance page cites Article 78 of the 2014 Law on Notarization, replaced by Article 73 of the 2024 law. Its property page has the embassy certify the signature on a property authorisation contract, although Decree 23 bars signature certification on a document whose content is a transaction, outside the unpaid one-sided power, and the embassy’s own procedure page says it notarises authorisation documents. The same page describes sending a contract attested by a US notary and the Secretary of State to the embassy for legalisation; if the Apostille Convention applies between the United States and Vietnam, which was not re-checked for this article, Decree 293/2026 bars Vietnamese bodies from requiring legalisation of a document that already bears an apostille.
• The German embassy’s guide also cites Article 78 of the 2014 law, and allows signature certification on a power of attorney for administrative procedures and for “other cases” not requiring a contract, wider than the four cases in Circular 01/2020.
• The Canadian embassy’s page, undated, carries a note that from 11 September 2026 it no longer accepts legalisation of Canadian public documents, while its power-of-attorney section still says a property power must be notarised in Canada, authenticated and “Legalized by the Embassy of Vietnam in Canada”.

Signing before a foreign notary

Decree 293/2026/NĐ-CP, issued on 23 July and in force since 11 September 2026, counts notarial acts and official certificates on privately signed documents as public documents. This means that a foreign notary’s certificate on a signed power is one.

A public document bearing an apostille from a state between which and Vietnam the Apostille Convention applies is exempt from legalisation and used without further certification, and Vietnamese bodies may not require legalisation of it (Article 25).

If it is not in Vietnamese, it must be translated, with the translation notarised or certified under Vietnamese law unless a specialised law provides otherwise (Article 27(1)).

For other states, consular legalisation under Decree 111/2011/NĐ-CP, as amended by Decree 196/2025/NĐ-CP from 3 August 2025, remains the route unless a treaty or reciprocity exempts the document (Article 9); legalisation certifies the seal, signature and title on a document, not its content.

A separate article sets out the states whose objections mean the Convention does not run between them and Vietnam.

A company or a bank account

Under Article 12 of the Law on Enterprises 2020, as amended by Law 76/2025/QH15 from 1 July 2025, a company must always have at least one legal representative residing in Vietnam.

Where only one remains, that person must, on leaving Vietnam, authorise in writing another individual residing in Vietnam to exercise the representative’s rights and obligations, and remains responsible for them. If the sole legal representative is absent from Vietnam for more than 30 days without such an authorisation, the owner, members’ council or board appoints another legal representative.

For a payment account, Article 5 of the State Bank’s Circular 17/2024/TT-NHNN, as amended by Circular 25/2025/TT-NHNN, lets the holder authorise its use in writing, in line with the law on authorisation.

The holder sends the bank the authorisation with data identifying the attorney, and the bank must verify that identity. A joint-account holder may authorise another person only with the written consent of all the other holders.

What this article has not established

No provision found says in terms that a power to sell must be notarised or certified.

Nor was a rule found, in the Law on Notarization in its current or 2027 text or in its implementing Decree 104/2025/NĐ-CP, on whether a notary or land registration office in Vietnam must accept a power notarised abroad; the land-registration decrees were not opened.

Whether Article 57 covers a mission and a notary office in Vietnam was not established, and neither was what the 2027 amendment changes for these transactions beyond Articles 57 and 73(1).

The Ministry of Justice’s list of transactions requiring notarisation and the foreign ministry’s Consular Department website could not be opened on 12 October 2026.

The consolidated text of Decree 23/2015 was not opened. The status of the Land, Housing and Notarization laws rests on the latest Official Gazette consolidations, not on the Ministry of Justice’s database. The embassy sites were not checked against a foreign ministry directory.

Circular 149/2026/TT-BTC was not read, bilateral treaties that might exempt notarial acts from legalisation were not checked, and the list of states with which the Apostille Convention applies was not re-read.