Customized documents to be sent back home

By Richard Kistnen, Esq.

As my office is situated in a neighborhood predominantly populated by good people from the West Indies, I receive many requests for help with documents to be sent back home (often to Guyana or Trinidad).  The documents often relate to some procedure involving immigration, real estate or a contract of business.  More often than not, because of differences in practices here in New York and abroad, there is often confusion as to what a particular document needs to look like and it should contain.  Below are some practical tips to help this kind of document drafting a bit easier.
1. Find out what the document is called back home.  It seems like a ministerial matter, but just as some documents here lose their function as a particular document if they do fail to contain certain language (such as a power of attorney), the same could be said of documents in other countries.  I often receive requests to draft a document containing a name, address, and some identifying information but the party requesting the document does not know the document should be called.  If a document should have a title, it may be rejected for not sufficiently identifying what it purports to be.  Every document drafted should have a clear and explicit title of what it purports to be.
2. Find out what the document should contain.  Just as certain documents require certain formalities to be considered a valid document (such as a power of attorney) here in New York, it can be presumed that formal requirements for a document exist back home.  If you are having a document drafted for real estate purposes, for example, find out from back home what, specifically, needs to be in the document.  Do you have to identify when you acquired the property?  Do you have to identify the property by address or some other format?  Do you have to specifically state to whom you are giving authority to make decisions and the scope of that decision-making authority?  It is a poor feeling when you have had a document created, shipped overseas, and subsequently returned as not acceptable because it did not include specific information that was readily available.
3. Inquire about execution formalities.  Many, if not most, documents used here in New York for legal purposes need to be notarized.  A handful of others require witness and execution by independent witnesses.  The same holds true for documents to be sent back home.  Some require a stamp by a notary public, while others require execution by witnesses.  Inquire about who needs to execute a document to be valid, and how the document should be executed (for example, whether a person notarizing a document also serves as a witness to the execution of the document).
In my experience, it seems that affidavits tend to work well and are generally accepted for many legal issues to be resolved in these countries.  Notwithstanding, it is important to get it done right the first time to avoid unnecessary delays and expenses in accomplishing what you are seeking to have done. As an affidavit can be customized to suit any and all purposes, it is important that a person seeking a document to be drafted have at least the information set out above.  If you have any questions concerning customized documents and affidavits, feel free to reach the Law Office of Richard Kistnen.