709.01 Power of attorney; authority of nominee when principal dead.
709.01 Power 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.
History. s. 1, ch. 23011, 1945; s. 1, ch. 67-453; s. 793, ch. 97-102.