Free North Dakota Durable Power of Attorney Form

A North Dakota durable power of attorney designates an attorney in fact to act on your property and financial affairs, written so the authority outlasts your disability. Chapter 30.1-30 of the Century Code, the Uniform Durable Power of Attorney Act, governs it.

The chapter is remarkably short. Six sections cover the whole subject, which makes North Dakota one of the leanest states in the country on this topic.

Brevity has consequences, though, and two of them below catch people out.

Durability is not automatic here. Section 30.1-30-01 defines a durable power of attorney as a writing that designates your attorney in fact and contains particular language.

Two phrasings are named outright. One says this power of attorney is not affected by subsequent disability or incapacity of the principal or by lapse of time. The other says this power of attorney becomes effective upon the disability or incapacity of the principal.

Similar words also qualify. What the statute wants is language showing your intent that the authority stays exercisable despite your later disability, and, unless the document states a time of termination, despite the passage of time since signing.

Section 30.1-30-02 then does the practical work. Acts your attorney in fact performs during a period of your disability bind you and your successors as though you were competent.

Most states lock gifts away unless you expressly grant them. North Dakota does the opposite, and section 30.1-30-06 is worth reading carefully before you sign anything broad.

Where a power of attorney authorizes your attorney in fact to perform any act you might do, or otherwise evidences your intent to give full power to handle your affairs, that agent may make gifts. The gifts may be in any amount, of any of your property, to any individual or to a qualifying charitable organization.

You keep the ability to change that. The same section lets you authorize or limit gift-making by express words in the document.

Section 30.1-30-03 hands real power to a court-appointed fiduciary. Where a court of your domicile appoints a conservator, a guardian of the estate, or another fiduciary managing your property, your attorney in fact becomes accountable to that fiduciary as well as to you.

The fiduciary can also rewrite the arrangement. That same subsection gives them the same power to revoke or amend the power of attorney that you would have had if you were not disabled.

Your own nomination carries weight in return. Section 30.1-30-03 lets you nominate a conservator or guardian in the document, and the court shall appoint in accordance with your most recent nomination except for good cause or disqualification.

Third parties get certainty as well. Under section 30.1-30-05, an affidavit from your attorney in fact stating they had no actual knowledge of revocation, death, disability, or incapacity is conclusive proof, and it is recordable where the transaction requires a recordable instrument.

Your North Dakota durable power of attorney needs the section 30.1-30-01 durability wording, your name and your attorney in fact’s, and a clear description of the authority granted. Naming a successor keeps a North Dakota durable power of attorney working if your first choice cannot serve.

Address gifts deliberately, one way or the other. Then sign, and get the document notarized even though chapter 30.1-30 sets out no signing ceremony, because banks and county recorders generally expect an acknowledged signature before they will act.