90 CVS 910 Appeal by defendants from judgment entered 30 July 1992 by Judge Herbert O. Phillips, III, in Carteret County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 26 January 1995. Nelson W. Taylor, III, for plaintiff appellee.
Defendants appeal from order granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.
Defendants contend the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for plaintiff, alleging there was a genuine issue of fact concerning the scope of the power of attorney. We hold that a power of attorney purportedly granting the authority for making gifts of real property must, to be effective, expressly provide for making gifts of real property, and we affirm the trial court. George W. Pittman, Jr., deceased, owned a certain parcel of land in Merrimon Township, Carteret County, North Carolina, which was the family homeplace. In October 1988, Pittman and his wife, Rose Lupton Pittman, became concerned about what would happen to the homeplace should anything happen to him. In November 1988, Pittman and his wife contacted the defendants, Dessie Pittman Gaskill and Alice Pittman Lewis Durham, to discuss how to assure the homeplace would be protected from his daughter, the plaintiff, and his wife's daughter from a previous marriage.