The Power of The Attorney

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Here's a question that came to mind when I read someone else's comment that his lawyer had him get power of attorney for his wife so the documents could be signed here, thereby avoiding the delay of having to send them to China.

 

Does anyone know if Power of Attorney (POA) is necessary in this case? I'm assuming original signatures or POA should be in place, but I seem to remember something about if you're signing for your spouse, it isn't required, only recommended.

 

Any arm-chair lawyers want to give this a shot?

[Jeikun]

Well, for wife I have no idea. If you were talking about my post though, she's my fiance

[olemanoman1950]

I myself sent in 325A's with her signature but I Photocopied them and was told by others that it had to be Her Original Signature in BLUE INK is better.

So sent 3 sets of 4 for her to sign in BLUE INK and had her send them back. Cost 60.00 USD UPS 2 day delivery Took 4 days. She sent them back Regular mail express took 7 days so a total of 11 days. Just waiting to see if I get RFE'd for Copies of documents with her signature instead of original.

As for Power of Attorney I don't know if that will fly.

[keelec]

Mark,

 

As an "armchair" lawyer..... I would vote for just having one's wife or fiancee sign the forms.

 

Yes, it can cause an extra delay for sending the forms back and forth, but I am sure it is worth it. The INS can be very picky about little things.

 

You can print most PDF forms to PDF995 (and thus preserve any data that you entered).... Then e-mail it. If the form is protected and you can't get it to save and print back to PDF with "newer" versions of Acrobat, try version 4.

 

I had worked on converting some of the forms to MS word, and got to about 95% complete before I got burried with other stuff. Anyway, you should be able to transfer "soft" copies of the forms to China, and just ask for originals to be sent back. I don't know about faxed or scanned copies.

 

A good (blue) scanned image of a signature printed back out on a good color laser printer can be awfully difficult to distinguish from an original. But, then that would be a different discussion.

 

----- Clifford ------

[Jim - Portland, USA]

Whoops, ignore this post

[Jim - Portland, USA]

Mark,

 

As your armchair legal council, I would advise against assuming power-of-attorney in your wife's name. The reason why is ... I've never heard of this before.

 

Never have I heard that a husband can instantaneously assume and create power-of-attorney over his wife, nor can a wife instantaneously assume and create power-of-attorney over her husband.

 

If it were that easy, it seems to me that we all would hear more cases (abuses) of wives signing for husbands and husbands signing for wives. Not just immigration forms, but ... loans, mortgages, Saks 5th Avenue shopping sprees, all that kind of stuff. There's a reason why each of us have our own signatures, and there's a reason why each of us must sign certain documents.

 

Imagine your wife signing your name on a $1 million Shanghai condo deal I doubt that would be held up in any court in any country.

 

This isn't to say that you can't forge your wife's signature and hope that the USBCISINSDOSDHS doesn't notice, but again, as your armchair legal council, I would advise against this.

 

And I suppose with due process you could arrange to legally assume power-of-attorney over your wife, but in the time it would take to do that, you could already have her fresh original signature back in your hands via postal mail. Plus, doing such a thing might slow things down while the USDHSDOSBCIS folks figure out if you have the right to do such a thing.

 

I agree with Clifford. Type up the .pdf documents, email them to her, she can print them, sign them, and mail them back to you. That will at least cut the mailing time in half.

[keelec]

Never have I heard that a husband can instantaneously assume and create power-of-attorney over his wife, nor can a wife instantaneously assume and create power-of-attorney over her husband.

 

If it were that easy, it seems to me that we all would hear more cases (abuses) of wives signing for husbands and husbands signing for wives. Not just immigration forms, but ... loans, mortgages, Saks 5th Avenue shopping sprees, all that kind of stuff. There's a reason why each of us have our own signatures, and there's a reason why each of us must sign certain documents.

Of course, that is done very frequently in cases of the elderly, or perhaps also accident victims....

 

Yep, it may happen to many of us that marry wives 20 years younger than ourselves.

 

I don't know what the process is for assuming "Power of Attorney" is though. It may involve official court documents and a doctor's statement. And, of course, there is the question whether a person can assume power of attorney over another without their consent (again a major issue with the sick and elderly).

 

Thank God, most of our fiancees and wives are healthy and can sign their own stuff.

 

---- Clifford -----

[C4Racer]

I would be very careful about power of attorney. My understanding of power of attorney is not only do you have to have it issued, but you also must file it in the jurisdiction where you are going to use it. This is how domestic power-of-attorneys work. Now we have another issue and that is one of international law. Where does the power-of-attorney get issued? Where can this be filed.

Seems it is simplier to have her sign the forms.

 

I am a Network Specialist for a document solutions provider. When you email her the forms to be printed, you must take one thing into consideration. In America we use letter size paper, 8 1/2 X 11 inches. In China and much of the rest of the world they use A4 size which is about 8 1/4 X 11 3/4 inches. She might not know how to convert PDF's and get them to print. Pingxiu had trouble opening up the PDF's on her computer because of the difference in paper sizes. The way I resolved this issue was to save the forms in JPEG format. She simply printed the JPEG, signed the forms and sent them to me.

 

You can definately tell with both forms set side by side, they where printed on different printers, different type of paper and signed by different people.

[se_lang]

Whoops, ignore this post 

I said that once and nobody listened

[Dean Hall]

I went down 2 simultaneous trails on getting my wife to the states.

The first was the standard K3, but I also followed the I-130 trail with the NVC as the I-130 was rapidly approved by Vermont.

 

The NVC required and in fact would do nothing on the case until a form called DS3032 (Agent of Choice) was filled out by her and returned to the NVC. This Agent of Choice document looked to me for all intents and purposes to be a power of attorney.

 

Any person could be selected as agent of choice on the DS3032, including the petitioner, an attorney, or the sponsor.

 

I am not sure that the DS3032 gives anyone the right to sign the petitioners name. It does make it possible for the P3, P4 documents to be sent to your address in the states.

 

To be safe, I filled in the paperwork, but still had her sign it.

[se_lang]

I am a Network Specialist for a document solutions provider. When you email her the forms to be printed, you must take one thing into consideration.  In America we use letter size paper, 8 1/2 X 11 inches. In China and much of the rest of the world they use A4 size which is about 8 1/4 X 11 3/4 inches. She might not know how to convert PDF's and get them to print. Pingxiu had trouble opening up the PDF's on her computer because of the difference in paper sizes. The way I resolved this issue was to save the forms in JPEG format. She simply printed the JPEG, signed the forms and sent them to me.

 

You can definately tell with both forms set side by side, they where printed on different printers, different type of paper and signed by different people.

adobe approval 5.0 -it allows you to save fillable forms then just email, it worked like a charm. However her Bro-in-law is in the IT field so he printed them no problem but like C4 says they printed on the long paper.

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Thanks for all the advice, as I suspected, the best course of action is have her sign it. The problem with this is I will have to fed ex it. She doesn't have a computer and uses the kiosks or the school's. If they have the capacity to print it, I don't know that she has the knowledge to download it.

 

Sending it as a jpeg would work, if she can find a printer. Otherwise, a fax machine will be best.

 

To this issue, does anyone know if any other K-3 documents need to be signed? When I sent the I-130 off, I had no idea that I'd be doing the G-325A form again. If I'd known I needed another set of signatures, I could've sent it snail mail and had it here when the NOA arrived. Now I'm looking at more $$$ and more friggin' time.

 

Sorry, I needed to vent a little about redundancy.

[Jim - Portland, USA]

China and much of the rest of the world they use A4 size which is about 8 1/4 X 11 3/4 inches.

I always wondered what A4 was Thanks Michael, and that's some good advice too.

[Dave G.]

Whoops, ignore this post  

I said that once and nobody listened

HA! I caught it too........

[tywy_99]

China and much of the rest of the world they use A4 size which is about 8 1/4 X 11 3/4 inches.

I always wondered what A4 was Thanks Michael, and that's some good advice too.

A0, A1, A2, A3, and A4..............all metric size paper unlike our imperial sizes of 81/2x11, 81/2 x14, 11x17, and 24x36...........