Can a Power of Attorney Be Effective if the Principal Dies?

Full question:

I have a Durable Power of Attorney For Finance for My Brother, that was developed using Legal Zoom. Article II states This Power of Attorney shall become effective upon my disability and shall survive and continue during my disability, incompetence, incapacity, or partial incapacity, etc. Article III states' The successor Agent shall be entitled to act upon the DEATH, disability, etc.' Article IV states 'My agent shall have all powers of an ABSOLUTE OWNER over my assets and liabilities -- within or without the State of FL, WITHOUT LIMITATION etc.' -- My Brother passed away and now the bank and Legal Zoom customer service advises that this power of attorney ceases at death. Can this be true, given the above Article specifics ?

• Category: Power of Attorney
• Date: 04/07/2025
• State: Florida

Answer:

A power of attorney ceases to be effective on the death of the principal. However, the agent may not be personally liable for acts taken after the principal's death if the agent wasn't aware the principal died.

Please see the following FL statute:

709.01Power of attorney; authority of nominee when principal dead.
—If any agent, constituted by power of attorney or other authority, shall do any act for his or her principal which would be lawful if such principal were living, the same shall be valid and binding on the estate of said principal, although he or she may have died before such act was done; provided, the party treating with such agent dealt bona fide, not knowing at the time of the doing of such act that such principal was dead. An affidavit, executed by the attorney in fact or agent setting forth that he or she has not or had not, at the time of doing any act pursuant to the power of attorney, received actual knowledge or actual notice of the death of the principal, or notice of any facts indicating his or her death, shall in the absence of fraud be conclusive proof of the absence of knowledge or notice by the agent of the death of the principal at such time. If the exercise of the power requires the execution and delivery of any instrument which is recordable under the laws of this state, such affidavit shall likewise be recordable. No report or listing, either official or otherwise, of “missing” or “missing in action” regarding any person in connection with any activity pertaining to or connected with the prosecution of any hostilities in which the United States is then engaged, as such words “missing” or “missing in action” are used in military parlance, shall constitute or be interpreted as constituting actual knowledge or actual notice of the death of such principal, or notice of any facts indicating the death of such person, or shall operate to revoke the agency.