POA Drafting vs Translation: Why Prices Differ

Someone calls the office in the afternoon. They say: “I need a power of attorney. How much?”

That question has two answers, and the answers differ by several multiples. Drafting a Power of Attorney is a legal service. Translating an existing one is a language service. Same document category, very different work.

The reason the conversation matters is that people routinely pay for the wrong service, get the wrong quote, or assume a translator can draft a POA and then find out — at the DLD counter, at a bank, at a notary — that the document does not hold up.

The Two Services You Might Be Asking For

Drafting a POA means a legal practitioner writes the document from your situation: who the principal is, what powers go to the agent, which UAE authority the POA is intended for, and what clauses are needed so the counter accepts it on the first presentation. This is legal writing with judgement, not template-filling. When DLD rejects a property POA because the plot reference is missing, or a bank rejects a banking POA because the scope is too broad, the cause is almost always drafting — not translation.

Translation of a POA means you have a signed document already, and it needs to appear in another language for the receiving authority. The most common case is a document drafted abroad in English, or in a home-country language, that needs MOJ-certified Arabic translation for UAE submission. The MOJ-licensed translator guarantees that the target-language version accurately reflects the source — nothing more and nothing less.

Once you see the two services as separate, the pricing difference stops being confusing. It is the same reason a lawyer does not charge the same as an interpreter, even when both are working on the same meeting.

Drafting Pricing: What You Are Actually Paying For

A drafting fee covers four things that a translation fee does not.

Legal judgement on scope. A POA that grants too much authority creates exposure for the principal. A POA that grants too little gets rejected at the counter because the agent cannot complete the transaction. Hitting the correct scope requires understanding what the authority — DLD, ADJD, Dubai Courts, a bank, MOFA, or MOHRE — will actually demand on the day of submission. That knowledge sits with a practitioner who has seen thousands of rejections and the patterns behind them.

Format to the receiving authority. DLD property POAs have a format DLD expects. Banking POAs reference specific account numbers and transaction types. Court POAs cite the relevant Civil Procedure Law articles. A generic bilingual template produces a POA that may read correctly in both languages but fails at the counter because the formatting is not what the authority accepts. Drafting includes matching the format to the target.

Bilingual construction. A POA drafted in English and then translated into Arabic is not the same as a POA drafted bilingually from the start. Ambiguities in the English version become ambiguities in the Arabic. A bilingually drafted POA — both languages written in parallel against the same legal intent — reduces interpretation disputes when Arabic-speaking authorities and English-speaking banks each look at their respective version.

Revision within scope. Drafting includes adjustments before finalisation. Scope changes, added agents, date adjustments, additional powers. Those revisions happen while the document is still under legal review. With translation, the source is fixed — revisions after delivery usually mean re-translating, which means re-paying.

None of that is present in a translation quote, because none of that is translation work.

Translation Pricing: Per-Word, Mechanical, Predictable

Translation of a POA is priced on a mechanical basis: either per word of the source text or per standard page. An MOJ-licensed translator measures the source, quotes the cost, performs the translation, and certifies the output with the MOJ stamp. The judgement involved is terminological — choosing the correct Arabic equivalent for “notwithstanding,” for “hereby revoke,” for “specific power to mortgage.” That judgement sits inside the language skill, not inside legal drafting.

Because the work is quantifiable by volume, the pricing is predictable. A 600-word POA costs what a 600-word POA of similar complexity costs. There are marginal adjustments — an old handwritten POA with faded text takes longer than a clean typed draft — but the base unit is stable.

What the translation fee does not cover:

• Correcting errors in the source document. If the source POA has the wrong plot number, the translation will have the wrong plot number.
• Legal advice on whether the powers are enforceable. If the source grants a power the UAE does not recognise, the translation will faithfully grant the same unrecognised power.
• Reformatting to match the receiving authority. The translator produces the Arabic version of what was submitted. If the submitted document was in an unusable format, the translated version will be unusable in the same way.

When clients expect translation to fix drafting problems, the result is a MOJ-stamped document that still fails at the counter. The fix would have been to correct the source first — which is a drafting cost, not a translation cost.

Scenarios: When You Need Drafting, Translation, or Both

You have no POA yet. You need drafting. If the intended use is a UAE authority, get the draft prepared bilingually from the start. A standalone English draft that gets translated later is the more expensive route — both in fees and in rejection risk.

You have a signed POA in English from your home country. Most UAE authorities will require Arabic. You need translation, not drafting. Check that the document has already been through the attestation chain for documents coming from abroad — a POA signed abroad typically requires home-country notarisation, home MOFA, UAE Embassy attestation, then MOFA UAE before translation. The attestation-then-translation sequence matters because counters want to see all the stamps rendered in the translated document.

You have a bilingual POA from abroad. If both Arabic and English exist and both are clean, you may not need translation at all — only attestation of the original, depending on the authority. When the Arabic version reads poorly or was produced without access to UAE legal terminology, a re-translation of the English into proper MOJ Arabic is sometimes cheaper than arguing with the counter.

You need to change an existing POA. Revoking, amending, or replacing a POA is a drafting task. Even if the original document exists in both languages, the revocation needs its own drafted instrument — and that instrument may then need translation if you are submitting it to an authority that requires Arabic.

You need a POA for use outside the UAE. A UAE-drafted POA going abroad follows the reverse of the inbound chain: UAE notary, MOFA UAE, destination embassy, and — if the destination country does not accept English — translation into the destination language. The drafting quote stays UAE-based. The translation target language changes.

The Hidden Trap: Authenticated Translation Is Not Drafting

MOJ-licensed translators sometimes produce a document from client instructions that reads like a POA. “Write that my cousin can pick up my passport from GDRFA” — the translator drafts a short authority letter in Arabic and stamps it. It looks official.

For many straightforward authority letters, this works at counters. GDRFA and some Amer centres accept a translator-prepared letter in Arabic for routine collection tasks. The MOJ stamp is what the counter is checking.

It does not work where the authority is inspecting substance as well as form. DLD will not accept a translator-prepared document for a property sale. Courts will not accept a translator-prepared litigation POA. Banks will not accept a translator-prepared cheque-signing POA. In those settings, a notarised instrument drafted under legal judgement is the only accepted form — and the notary will refuse to notarise a document the translator wrote outside the scope of their licence.

The practical rule: the higher the stakes of the transaction and the stricter the authority, the more important that drafting and translation stay as separate, appropriately priced services. Corporate POAs and cross-border POAs sit firmly in the drafting-then-translation category.

How to Avoid the Wrong Quote

Before paying for either service, confirm two things:

1. Does the document exist yet? If yes, you are likely looking at translation. If no, you need drafting — and the drafting quote is the correct starting point.
2. Who is the receiving authority, and what do they require? A DLD POA, a bank POA, a court POA, and a general authority letter are not the same instrument. Ask the provider to reference the specific authority. A quote that does not reference a target authority is a generic-template quote — often underpriced because the scope is vague, and underpriced quotes often produce rejected documents.

If someone quotes a single low price covering “drafting and translation,” that is worth a second look. Either the drafting scope is thin — in which case the document may fail at the counter — or the quote does not actually include drafting and the client will discover after payment that the source will not hold up when submitted.

The same caution applies in reverse. A very high quote for translating a four-page POA that already exists may be over-scoped. Translation is quantifiable. The source document pages and word count should produce a quote that is close to what other MOJ-licensed providers would charge. If it is multiples higher, ask what else is being included — sometimes the higher quote bundles drafting-style revisions that the client does not need.

Contact Channels

For POA drafting — bilingual Arabic-English, formatted for DLD, banks, courts, or notary — the drafting service works on 2 business day standard turnaround and 24 hours express.

For POA translation — MOJ-certified Arabic translation of an existing POA — scope is quoted per document within the business day.

• WhatsApp: +971 50 862 0217
• iMessage: +971 50 862 0217
• Email: info@onlinetranslation.ae
• Phone: +971 50 862 0217
• Walk-in: Palm Jumeirah Mall, Dubai

Send the POA — or a description of the situation if no document exists yet. We reply with whether drafting, translation, or both are needed, and quote the correct service before any work begins. If the intended use is unclear, we clarify before quoting. The work saved by getting the service identification right is usually the work of redoing a rejected document.