Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Colorado is one of the most permissive states on execution. No witnesses are required, and notarisation is not required for validity — it buys you a presumption that the signature is genuine, which is a different thing. Colorado is also durable by default: you have to say the opposite if you want it to end on incapacity.
The execution box
- Signature: by the principal, or in the principal’s conscious presence by another individual the principal directs.
- Witnesses: none required.
- Notary: not required for validity — but it creates a presumption the signature is genuine.
- Durability: durable by default for instruments created on or after 1 January 2010.
What the statute says
A power of attorney must be signed by the principal or in the principal’s conscious presence by another individual directed by the principal to sign the principal’s name on the power of attorney. A signature on a power of attorney is presumed to be genuine if the principal acknowledges the signature before a notary public or other individual authorized by law to take acknowledgments.
— C.R.S. §15-14-705
Two words carry weight here. “Conscious presence” is a lower bar than physical presence in some formulations — it contemplates a principal who is aware the signing is happening. And “presumed to be genuine” is not the same as “valid”: the notary is evidentiary, not constitutive.
A power of attorney executed in this state on or after January 1, 2010, is valid if its execution complies with section 15-14-705.
— C.R.S. §15-14-706(1)
Validity turns solely on complying with the execution section. There is no additional witness or acknowledgement condition hiding elsewhere for instruments executed from 2010 onward.
Why you should still get it notarised
Because the people who have to accept it are not reading the statute. A bank, a title company or a brokerage confronted with an unnotarised power of attorney will frequently refuse it, and being right about Colorado law does not move money on a Tuesday afternoon. The presumption of genuineness exists precisely to defuse that argument.
What to do when a bank refuses a power of attorney
Durable by default — the opposite of several neighbours
A power of attorney created on and after January 1, 2010, is durable unless it expressly provides that it is terminated by the incapacity of the principal.
— C.R.S. §15-14-704(1) (subsections joined for readability; no words added)
This inverts the rule people often carry across state lines. In a number of states a power of attorney must say it is durable to survive incapacity; in Colorado it survives unless it expressly says it terminates. A form drafted for a must-say-durable state still works in Colorado — the reverse is not true, and that asymmetry is the one to remember.
Instruments created before 1 January 2010 are governed by the earlier rule and are not covered here.
This is the financial instrument, not the medical one
A power of attorney handles property and money. It does not direct medical treatment — that is an advance directive, a separate document, and in Colorado its execution rules are stricter than this one: two witnesses or a notary, with a disqualification list that applies to the notary as well.
Colorado advance directive requirements
What could not be verified
We have quoted sections 15-14-704(1), 15-14-705 and 15-14-706(1). We have not verified whether Colorado publishes a free official statutory form, so that field is left blank rather than guessed. Agent duties, third-party acceptance and refusal provisions, and the rules for coagents and successor agents are in adjoining sections not covered here.
Related: power of attorney requirements by state.
General information drawn from state statutes and official state or court forms, not legal advice. These instruments are governed by the law of the state where the property sits or the document is signed, and formalities differ from state to state — execution, witnessing and recording requirements are the parts that void a document when they are missed. Your own state’s current statute governs.