The new law eliminates the Statutory Gift Rider and increases the dollar threshold for actions requiring special authorization (from $500 to $5,000), but special care is still needed when considering gifting and the powers a principal intends to grant to his or her agent. Under the old law, agents were prohibited from making gifts or taking certain actions on behalf of the principal if the aggregate value of the transaction was greater than $500, unless the principal had signed a Statutory Gifts Rider.
Therefore, it is important to select disinterested witnesses when signing a Power of Attorney under the new law. The witnesses cannot be individuals named in the document as agents and serving as a witness makes a person ineligible to receive gifts from the agent at a later date. Under the new law, the person designating an agent (known as the “principal”), still needs to have his or her signature notarized, but now must sign the Power of Attorney in the presence of two witnesses (one of whom can be the notary). Under the old law, a Power of Attorney had to be notarized, but it was not necessary for the document to be witnessed. However, any Power of Attorney signed after June 13 th must comply with the new requirements, as outlined below. Powers of Attorney signed before this date that complied with the earlier law continue to be valid. On June 13, 2021, a new version of the New York Statutory Short Form Power of Attorney went into effect.
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