Which dates in your documents need checking before a deed completes?
There are four categories of dates worth checking systematically before any deed is signed: the validity of client identification, the currency of any authority documents, the issue dates of documents incorporated into the deed by reference, and the internal chronological consistency of the deed itself.
Checking that a client's passport or driving licence has not expired is standard practice. But that check covers only one date in what is often a stack of documents, each with its own date that matters.
Authority documents: date of grant is not proof of current validity
A power of attorney or board resolution dated two years ago may be perfectly effective today. Or it may not be. The grant date tells you when the authority was created, not whether it still exists.
For a power of attorney, the relevant question is what happened between the date it was granted and the date of signing. If the donor has died, lost capacity, or revoked the power, the document on file is no longer valid authority, whatever its date says.
In conveyancing practice, this is particularly relevant when dealing with a corporate signatory acting under a board resolution, or where a buyer or seller has authorised another person to complete on their behalf. The document establishes the starting point for the review, not the end of it.
For enduring or lasting powers of attorney, registration date and grant date may differ. The relevant date for validity is registration, not the date the instrument was originally signed.
Dates on incorporated documents and certificates
A conveyancing file typically includes documents obtained weeks or months before completion: official copies of the register, local authority search results, drainage searches, or certificates of title. Each of those carries its own date, and that date determines what it actually shows.
Official copies obtained at the start of a matter describe the title as it stood then. If charges, restrictions, or notices have been registered since, those copies do not reflect them. The same applies to search results — each has a reasonable working window, and a file should flag clearly which documents fall outside that window before the deed reaches the signing table.
The question is not whether the document has a date, but whether that date is recent enough for the purpose it is serving in this transaction. That varies by document type and by what the deed requires, but it needs to be considered before the client signs, not after.
Internal consistency of the deed
The deed carries a date, and every temporal reference inside it should be consistent with that date. If the deed states that a term expired last quarter, that statement needs to be accurate as at the completion date. If it incorporates a certificate stated to be current "as at the date hereof," the certificate needs to have been issued on a compatible date.
Problems of this kind surface when engrossments are prepared in advance and completion is delayed. The body of the deed may contain date references that were accurate when the engrossment was drafted but are no longer correct by the time the deed is executed. A pass through the deed's date references before it goes to the client for signature catches this before it becomes a problem of record.
A practical approach: build a simple timeline
The most common mistake is reviewing each document in isolation. A client with a current passport, a power of attorney dated before completion, and an official copy of the register obtained six months ago can each look fine individually. Problems appear when you read them together.
If the official copy predates the creation of the authority being relied on, or if the deed's stated completion date conflicts with dates in the documents it incorporates, the file as a whole does not hold together.
Before the deed is executed, it helps to set out:
- The oldest acceptable date for each document incorporated into the deed.
- The date of any authority relied upon, and what may have changed since.
- The expiry date of client identification documents for each party.
- The proposed completion date.
If those points are consistent, the date review is clean. If any document's date creates a gap or a conflict with the others, that is where a question needs to be resolved before the deed is signed.