Apparent Authority definition

Apparent authority is a legal doctrine whereby a person of reasonable capacity would understand that a person who lacks actual authority has temporary authority to act in a given situation with specific context.

Apparent authority is often called ostensible authority, particularly in the case of directors and officers of a company. An office manager, for example, is not a managing director of a company but it could be seen as a given that they have apparent authority to book tradesmen to work on company property.