Free Fillable Florida General Power of Attorney Form

Life is better when you organize yourself for any foreseeable emergencies than allow it to “organize” you with them. Florida residents can prepare for life’s disruptive emergencies using the Florida general power of attorney form (POA) to create delegated structures for their lives. With such delegated powers, you can also keep your businesses moving irrespective of what emergencies strike.

In this arrangement, your appointed steward becomes your agent or attorney-in-fact. You become your agent’s principal, donor, and grantor. Your agent can transact for you in different financial matters. For example, they can pay your debts, sell or buy property, and access your bank account. Therefore, you must ensure that the person you appoint to this position is trustworthy. They should demonstrate high levels of fidelity and mental competence. Otherwise, they could cause you regrettable and avoidable troubles.

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A power of attorney form elapses when you become incapacitated or die. That means your mental power is necessary for overseeing the trust. So, you too can fill POA forms to decongest your financial life and activities. So, it’s beneficial to you and your business engagements to document and commission a power of attorney because you never know what tomorrow holds.

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Filling out the Florida General POA Form

Filling the Florida general POA form is a critical stage in creating a power of attorney. Thus, it’s essential to know how to fill it correctly as per the law. Here is how you should fill your power of attorney form in Florida.

Get the POA Form

You start by downloading the form on this website. You may fill it onscreen, save it for future convenient use, or print and fill it manually. When downloading the form, ensure that your computer has a compatible program to open and read the downloaded form. You can choose to download it in Word or PDF format.

Give Personal Details

After finishing with the form, it’s time to record your necessary details and your agent’s. You have to indicate your county’s name on the form. It’s critical to do this to show where your agent will execute the POA. Write your name in the first blank line of the document. Next, fill in your agent’s name after the words “…constitute and appoint.”

Authorize Your Agent

Next, you have to authenticate your agent’s authority by signing it. You must sign it in the presence of two witnesses, followed by notarization. To finalize this document, you should start with a statement that reads “In Witness Whereof…” Here, you have to report how many pages the document has. Then, date the day you signed the document. You must date it by entering the date, month, and year the document was signed. Next, sign your name on the blank space labeled “signed.”

Your witnesses must attest to a few legal requirements in the “attestation” section. They also need to date their signatures the way you dated yours and following a similar dating format.

After you and your witnesses have signed and dated the form, your notary public will come in last to complete the process. They will fill out a special section that only notaries are legally permitted to fill. The notary will fill in their name and attest that they validate this power of attorney. They will seal the instrument and make it legally executable.

Florida General POA Requirements

Florida has many legal requirements you should abide by to make a general power of attorney legally binding, included in Chapter 709 (Power of Attorney Act). Here are the leading ones you need to familiarize yourself with before drafting your general POA.

The law requires all principals initiating a general POA to have the mental capacity to do it. Thus, one must be a sane adult aged at least 18 years to initiate one. Your potential agent must also have the same capacity to execute a power of attorney. The law insists on capacity because drafting and executing a POA can be risky and challenging for both parties. Therefore, both of them should understand the legal and technical implications they’re exposing themselves to.

A power of attorney also becomes legally effective if a principal and their two witnesses sign it. A notary public may also notarize the instrument. If a principal is physically unable to sign the instrument, their notary public may sign their name on the document for them.

The law also allows financial institutions with trust powers and business premises in Florida to create powers of attorney. The institution must also be authorized to conduct trust business in the state.

However, Florida laws say very little about wording a power of attorney, although all POAs must be written.