How to Fill Out and Sign a Maryland Power of Attorney (POA) Form

To complete a Maryland power of attorney form, choose between the Personal Financial Power of Attorney under Estates and Trusts § 17-202 or the narrower Limited Power of Attorney under § 17-203, initial each specific power you want your agent to have, and then sign the document in front of a notary and two adult witnesses. Both statutory forms are published by the Maryland General Assembly. Once properly signed, the form takes effect immediately unless you write a different trigger into the special instructions.

Pick the Right Form First

The Personal Financial Power of Attorney (§ 17-202) is the broader document. It lists eleven subject categories of financial authority, and you initial the specific actions within each category that you want your agent to perform. Most people creating a general POA for illness, travel, or aging use this one.

The Limited Power of Attorney (§ 17-203) is built for a defined job: closing on a house while you’re abroad, handling a single bank account, or any other narrow task. The Personal Financial form itself notes that you can use the Limited form instead if you want to grant fewer than all the listed powers.¹

What You Need Before You Start Writing

Have this information in front of you before you open the form:

Full legal name and address for yourself (the principal), each agent, and any successor agents you want to name.
A decision on successors. The form has a dedicated section for naming alternates. If you skip it and your primary agent later dies, resigns, or becomes incapacitated, nobody has authority under the document and you may need to start over.
A decision on compensation. The agent receives nothing unless you initial one of the two compensation options: reasonable compensation, or a specific dollar amount you write in.²
A decision on co-agents. You may name two people. If you do, choose whether they must act jointly on every decision or whether either can act alone.

You also need the mental capacity to understand what the document does at the time of signing. You don’t need to grasp every financial detail your agent might handle. You do need to understand that you are giving someone authority to act for you and that you know who you’re choosing.

Initialing the General Authority Categories

The Personal Financial form lays out eleven subject categories. Within each, individual actions appear line by line, and you initial each one you want to grant. You can also initial “All of the above” for a given category rather than going action by action.³ The categories are:

Real property: buying, selling, leasing, mortgaging, or managing land and buildings.
Tangible personal property: vehicles, boats, planes, and other physical belongings, whether titled or not.
Stocks and bonds: buying, selling, or managing investment securities.
Banks and other financial institutions: opening or closing accounts, making deposits and withdrawals, and managing certificates of deposit.
Insurance and annuities: applying for, changing, or canceling policies and annuity contracts.
Claims and litigation: filing lawsuits, settling claims, and participating in alternative dispute resolution on your behalf.
Government benefits: managing benefits from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs.
Retirement plans: handling IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457(b) plans, and other retirement accounts.
Taxes: preparing and filing returns, paying taxes, and dealing with audits.
Digital assets: managing online accounts, digital files, and electronic records.
Trust and estate matters: acting for you in matters involving trusts or estates where you hold an interest.

Cross through any action you want to exclude. A blank line, neither initialed nor crossed out, can create ambiguity, so mark every line one way or the other.¹

Granting the High-Risk Specific Powers

Below the general authority section, the form has a separate “Grant of Specific Authority” block. These powers can permanently reduce your estate or change who inherits your property, so none of them take effect unless you affirmatively initial them. Leaving them blank means your agent cannot perform them, no matter how broad the general authority section looks.

The biggest specific power is the authority to make gifts or transfers. The form takes you through it in two steps. First, initial each category of recipient you want to authorize: spouse, parents, children, charitable organizations, people named in your estate plan, your intestate heirs, or the agent personally. Second, initial the dollar limit: a fixed annual cap you write in, the federal gift tax exclusion amount ($19,000 per recipient for 2025), or an unlimited amount tied to estate planning or qualifying for government benefits.² An agent with unlimited gift authority can effectively drain your accounts, so this is the line to think hardest about.

Other specific authority items include creating, amending, or revoking trusts and changing beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, insurance policies, and similar instruments. Each requires its own initial. The form’s warning at the top of this section is blunt: granting any of these powers could “significantly reduce your property or change how your property is distributed at your death.”²

Durability and When It Takes Effect

A Maryland power of attorney is durable by default. The agent’s authority survives your later incapacity, so if you develop dementia or suffer a serious injury the document remains in force. If you want a non-durable version that ends when you lose capacity, you have to say so in the special instructions.

The form becomes effective immediately upon signing unless you write in a future date or triggering event. A “springing” power that activates only after you become incapacitated is allowed, but the triggering language needs to be specific. You can name a particular person authorized to decide when the triggering event has occurred. If you don’t designate anyone for that role, a physician or judge may make the determination.¹

Signing the Form the Right Way

Maryland imposes four execution requirements, and missing any one can render the document unenforceable. Under Estates and Trusts § 17-110, the power of attorney must be:⁴

In writing.
Signed by the principal, or by another person at the principal’s express direction and in the principal’s physical presence.
Acknowledged before a notary public in the principal’s physical or electronic presence.
Attested and signed by two or more adult witnesses who sign in the physical presence of the principal and each other, or in the electronic presence of the principal and each other.

The notary who performs the acknowledgment can also serve as one of your two required witnesses, so in practice you only need to line up one additional person on signing day.⁴ Once the signatures, attestations, and notary seal are in place, no court filing is required. The document is immediately enforceable, and the agent can present it to banks and other institutions.

Electronic and Remote Signing

Maryland permits electronic and remotely witnessed execution, but with extra requirements. If the document is not connected to a real estate transaction, a supervising attorney must be present (physically or electronically) during the signing. That attorney can serve as one of the two witnesses. In addition:

The principal must be a Maryland resident or physically located in Maryland at the time of signing.
Any witness participating electronically must be a U.S. resident and physically located in the United States.
The supervising attorney must create a certified paper version of the document that includes all original and electronic signatures, along with a written certification confirming the attorney verified the identities and observed the signing.⁴

Remote online notarization is available in Maryland. Expect a remote signing session to take longer than an in-person ceremony, because the supervising attorney has to document everything carefully for the certified copy.

What the Agent Takes On

Accepting the role of agent creates a fiduciary relationship with legally enforceable duties. The statutory form itself spells them out. The agent must:

Do what the principal reasonably expects, or act in the principal’s best interest if those expectations are unknown.
Act with care, competence, and diligence.
Stay within the authority granted in the document.
Identify themselves as an agent when conducting business, by signing the principal’s name followed by their own name “as Agent.”⁵

Unless the special instructions say otherwise, the agent must also act loyally, avoid conflicts of interest, keep a record of all receipts, disbursements, and transactions, cooperate with anyone authorized to make health care decisions for the principal, and try to preserve the principal’s existing estate plan.⁵ The record-keeping duty is the one agents most often overlook. A running log of every transaction, even small ones, is the best protection against later accusations of mismanagement.

Federal Agencies Are a Separate Problem

A Maryland power of attorney does not automatically work with federal agencies. The IRS requires its own Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative, and the representative has to be someone eligible to practice before the IRS.⁶ The Social Security Administration uses its own Form SSA-1696, Appointment of Representative.⁷ If federal benefits or federal tax matters are part of the plan, file the relevant federal form in addition to the state POA.

Revoking or Ending the Power of Attorney

You can revoke a Maryland power of attorney at any time, as long as you have the mental capacity to do so. The cleanest method is a signed written revocation that identifies the original document and states it is revoked. Deliver a copy to the agent and to every bank, title company, or other third party that received the original. Signing a new power of attorney that explicitly replaces all prior versions has the same effect.

The document also ends when the principal dies, though termination isn’t as instantaneous as most people assume. Under § 17-106, an agent who acts in good faith without actual knowledge of the principal’s death is protected, and those transactions remain binding on the estate. The agent can sign an affidavit stating they had no knowledge of the death at the time they acted, and that affidavit is treated as conclusive proof.⁸ Once the agent learns of the death, all authority under the document ceases and the personal representative of the estate takes over.

The agent’s authority also ends on the agent’s own resignation, death, or incapacity. If you named successor agents, the next person in line steps in. A court can also terminate an agent’s power, typically after a family member or other interested party petitions and a judge finds mismanagement.

1
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-202 – Personal Financial Power of Attorney
2
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-202 – Maryland Statutory Form Personal Financial Power of Attorney
3
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-203 – Maryland Statutory Form Limited Power of Attorney
4
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-110 – Power of Attorney
5
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-203 – Maryland Statutory Form Limited Power of Attorney
6
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative
7
Social Security Administration. Appointment of Representative
8
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Estates and Trusts 17-106 – Revocation or Termination of Power of Attorney