To clarify, are you saying that someone signed a Power of Attorney document appointing someone else as his/her agent (or technically called the "Attorney-in-Fact", abbreviated as "AIF"), and the appointed AIF was also was the person who notarized the document? [The 'Limited' part referring to "certain properties" is likely irrelevant, as the notary is typically not concerned with the document contents, just identifying the signer and witnessing the signature. What you describe could be a very different matter, though.]
In my state, that's likely not at all typical, but its legality might be a bit of a grey area. Here, it's prohibited for us to notarize a document wherein we have a beneficial interest, which is defined rather narrowly. Under California notary law, it says: "For purposes of this section, a notary public has no direct financial or beneficial interest in a transaction where the notary public acts in the capacity of an agent, employee, insurer, attorney, escrow, or lender for a person having a direct financial or beneficial interest in the transaction." So it might be perfectly legal. (I don't think I'd do it just to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, but that could be a very different story for an attorney.)
However, as you suspected, Illinois notary law may differ significantly. I recommend you contact the Illinois Secretary of State, the ultimate authority for all notary matters there. Getting advice from a place like this is risky. Even though there are lots of knowledgeable notaries here, you have no way of knowing how reliable any information you get from here is (or from any other notary forum). Much better to get it directly from the source. (In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if you get different opinions here.)
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