Make your Florida power of attorney.

Key features in Florida

• Florida has no statutory short-form POA. Chapter 709 part II (the Florida Power of Attorney Act, §§709.2101 to 709.2402) prescribes execution and authority but does not provide a fill-in statutory form. An agent's general authority comes from the grant written into the instrument itself (Fla. Stat. §709.2201), not from a principal initialing lettered subject categories on a statutory form, so a Florida power of attorney carries no lettered subject-matter checklist. The only authority Florida requires the principal to sign or initial separately is the enumerated list in Fla. Stat. §709.2202(1).
• Seven 'superpowers' under Fla. Stat. §709.2202(1)(a) to (g) require the principal to sign or initial next to each specific enumeration: (a) create an inter vivos trust; (b) amend, modify, revoke, or terminate a trust (sub-paragraph (b) carries an additional statutory precondition that the trust instrument itself must explicitly authorize amendment, modification, revocation, or termination by the settlor's agent; the principal's sign-or-initial alone is insufficient if the trust is silent); (c) make a gift, subject to §709.2202(4); (d) create or change rights of survivorship; (e) create or change a beneficiary designation; (f) waive the principal's right to be a beneficiary of a joint and survivor annuity; (g) disclaim property and powers of appointment.
• Two defaults that a Florida power of attorney must expressly override. Unless the power of attorney otherwise provides, an agent who is not an ancestor, spouse, or descendant of the principal may not exercise the enumerated authority to create an interest in the agent, or in an individual to whom the agent owes a legal obligation of support, whether by gift, right of survivorship, beneficiary designation, disclaimer, or otherwise; the bar reaches interests created in the agent or in someone the agent supports, not gifts to third parties (Fla. Stat. §709.2202(3)). Unless the power of attorney otherwise provides, a grant of general gift authority authorizes gifts only up to the annual federal gift-tax exclusion under 26 U.S.C. s. 2503(b) per donee per calendar year, or twice that amount per donee per calendar year where the principal's spouse consents to a split gift under 26 U.S.C. s. 2513 (Fla. Stat. §709.2202(4)).
• Springing POAs are ineffective in Florida. Under Fla. Stat. §709.2108(1) a POA is exercisable when executed, and under §709.2108(3) a POA is ineffective if it provides that it is to become effective at a future date or upon the occurrence of a future event or contingency, except as provided in §709.2108(2) and Fla. Stat. §709.2106(4). The §709.2108(2) exception reaches only a POA executed before October 1, 2011 that is conditioned on the principal's lack of capacity and that had not become exercisable before that date; it becomes exercisable on delivery of the affidavit of the physician with primary responsibility for the principal's treatment and care. Outside the military, a POA signed today must be effective on execution. The §709.2106(4) exception is live: a military power of attorney is valid if executed in accordance with 10 U.S.C. s. 1044b, as amended, and a deployment-contingent power of attorney may be signed in advance, is effective upon the deployment of the principal, and shall be afforded full force and effect by the courts of this state.
• Requires BOTH two subscribing witnesses AND notarial acknowledgment, which is stricter than most states (Fla. Stat. §709.2105).
• A power of attorney executed by a principal domiciled in Florida at the time of execution, and witnessed remotely under §117.285 or other applicable law by a witness who is not in the principal's physical presence, is not effective to grant any of the seven enumerated superpowers. Both conditions matter: the rule reaches a principal domiciled here when the document was signed, and a witness who was not physically present (Fla. Stat. §709.2202(6)).