Guide · updated 31.07.2026 · 12 min read · Lucent Legal team

Power of Attorney Fraud in the UAE: How to Protect Yourself

If you own property or hold a large account in Dubai and don't live here full-time, a forged power of attorney (POA) has one nasty feature: victims usually find out after the fact — the apartment is sold, the money is withdrawn, and the POA itself went through formal notarization and looks entirely legitimate. Here's how this scheme actually works against overseas asset owners in the UAE, how to verify a POA before anyone acts on it, how to revoke one if you're suspicious, and where to report it if the deal already went through.

How the fake power of attorney scam works

According to industry reporting, the scheme centers on one idea: a POA that has cleared formal notarization and consular legalization opens access to all of a victim's assets — apartment, bank account, business — without the owner ever showing up. Scammers use forged passports and powers of attorney to run a sale through a stand-in "seller," sometimes even staging a video call with fake documents held up as proof of identity. Victims often learn their apartment was sold months later — a common blind spot for investors who bought property in the UAE but don't live there and don't check on it regularly.

The key risk factor is trust, not an anonymous hack: the starting point is usually a personal relationship — a partner, a "property manager," an acquaintance — to whom the owner handed over documents or agreed to a POA "for convenience" at some point. Because the document was formally signed by the actual owner or went through a legitimate process, these cases are harder to prosecute than a typical scam: courts and investigators have to untangle intent and good faith on both sides, not just prove a forgery took place.

How to verify a power of attorney is genuine

If someone hands you a POA — as a counterparty, a bank, or just someone who received the document and has doubts — here are the practical checks:

1. The QR code on the PDF. A POA notarized through Dubai Courts (including the online e-Notary service) is issued digitally with a unique QR code; scanning it lets you verify the document on the Dubai Courts' official website — the fastest way to confirm the notarization actually exists in the system rather than being edited into a PDF.
2. The notary's seal and details. Confirm the document carries the seal of a real notary (a Dubai Courts notary or a licensed private notary) — if in doubt, you can verify the seal and the notary's credentials directly with the office where the document was supposedly notarized.
3. MOFA attestation — for POAs headed abroad. If the POA is legalized for use outside the UAE, check whether it actually went through UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) attestation and the destination country's consular legalization — the full legalization chain is covered in the power of attorney in Dubai guide.
4. A direct request to the DLD for property matters. The Dubai REST app lets you check a property's status, pull a Title Deed extract, and see whether a POA and any transaction under it are registered in the Land Department's system — confirmation that's independent of the paper document you were shown.
5. Contact the grantor directly, if you can, through a channel that wasn't provided along with the POA — not through the same intermediary. Breaking the "you can only reach the grantor through this one person" chain by itself resolves or confirms most suspicions.

There are known cases where DLD's own verification steps caught an attempt to list a property for sale on a forged POA before the deal closed — the department's formal check at listing time genuinely works, but it shouldn't be your only line of defense.

If a power of attorney already looks suspicious: revoking it

If you have reason to believe someone is holding your POA or preparing to misuse it, you need to act on two tracks at once, not one after the other.

The first is formal revocation. A POA is revoked by notarizing a Revocation Notice at the same type of notary that issued the original document; the full procedure, including approximate notarization fees, is covered in the power of attorney in Dubai guide. What's easy to miss: revoking it at the notary does not automatically block a copy already filed with a bank, a developer, or the DLD — you need to notify each of those directly, and fast.

The second track is an emergency freeze. If there's reason to think the POA is being used, or is about to be, call your bank to freeze the account and file a police report the same day — don't wait for the notary revocation to "take effect," because a transaction on the old POA can still go through while the paperwork is in progress.

Where to report a completed transaction on a forged power of attorney

Once you find out a transaction happened that you never made or authorized, this is no longer a civil dispute — it's grounds for a criminal complaint. For the full breakdown of how to file (the eCrime portal, the Dubai Police app, numbers 901/999, Smart Police Stations) and an honest look at the odds of getting assets back, see reporting fraud in Dubai and how to file a police report in Dubai. Specific to forged powers of attorney:

• Alongside the police report, it's worth formally notifying the DLD (for property) about the disputed transaction and asking for the complaint to be logged in the system — a separate step, not a substitute for the criminal complaint.
• The sooner you file, the better the odds a court can freeze the account or asset before funds are moved out — the same principle applies across financial fraud cases in the UAE generally.
• Cases involving a prior personal relationship (see the scheme section above) tend to take longer for investigators and courts to work through than an anonymous scam — expect the investigation to run longer than a typical phishing case.

Penalties for forging a power of attorney

Forging an official document in the UAE, including a power of attorney, is a criminal offense under the forgery provisions of the penal code. Sources cite different article numbers — some point to Articles 216–217 of Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021 (the Federal Crimes and Penalties Law), others to the 251–263 range under a different codification of the same law. Sources cite penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines starting at AED 100,000 for using a forged document, and up to 5 years for knowingly using a forged copy. The exact charge in any given case is determined by the public prosecution — check with a lawyer rather than relying on the general figures here.

Prevention: not giving the scheme anything to work with

The best defense is not letting the scheme get any material in the first place:

• Don't sign a general power of attorney "just in case" — keep the scope and duration as narrow as possible for the specific task at hand.
• If a POA is only needed for one property deal, get a special/specific POA tied to that exact Title Deed, not broad authority over your assets.
• Verify the legitimacy of anyone asking for or presenting a POA, regardless of your personal relationship — trust doesn't substitute for a check through notary and government channels.
• Check the status of your UAE property and accounts through official services regularly, not once every few years, even from abroad.

When to bring in a lawyer

Sorting out a forged-POA case almost always calls for a lawyer — not because you can't file a police report yourself (you can and should, right away), but because everything after that hinges on speed and getting the procedural form right: requesting an asset or account freeze, working the DLD and the bank in parallel, and, if needed, a civil claim to recover the asset alongside the criminal case. We don't promise, and can't promise, that you'll get the asset back or how long it will take — the outcome depends on where the funds physically are or who the asset was transferred to, and on decisions made by the court and prosecution.

This material is for information only and is not legal advice. UAE law changes — a lawyer will assess how it applies to your situation.