Here is the short answer. In Virginia, a power of attorney is valid when the principal signs it. Notarizing is not the thing that makes it legal. What notarizing does is make the signature presumed genuine under Virginia law, and that presumption is the reason a bank, a hospital, or a title company will hand it back to you unnotarized without reading past the first page.
So the honest version is this. The law does not require it. The people you are going to hand it to effectively do.
What the statute actually says
Section 64.2-1603 of the Code of Virginia sets out how a power of attorney is signed. It says the document is signed by the principal, or by somebody else in the principal's conscious presence at the principal's direction. There is no line in it that says an unnotarized power of attorney is void.
The next sentence is the one that matters: a signature on a power of attorney is presumed genuine if the principal acknowledges it before a notary. That single word, presumed, is what you are buying.
Why every bank asks for it anyway
Put yourself on the other side of the counter. Somebody walks in holding a piece of paper that says they can move money out of another person's account. Without a notarized acknowledgment, the teller has no way to know the signature is real, and the bank carries the loss if it is not.
With the notary block, the bank gets the legal presumption instead. That is why "it is valid without a notary" is true in a courtroom and useless at a bank window, and why we treat a power of attorney as a notarize-it-always document even though the statute is softer than that.
If the power of attorney is going to touch real estate, there is a second reason. To be recorded in a Virginia land record it has to meet the recording requirements, and a recorded instrument needs the acknowledgment.
The principal has to be there, and has to be aware
This is the part that surprises families. The notary is not verifying the document. The notary is verifying the person signing it, which means the principal has to be in the room, and the law is blunt about it: section 47.1-15 forbids notarizing when the signer is not in the notary's presence.
The signer also has to be awake, aware of what they are signing, and doing it willingly. A notary who cannot get a coherent answer to "do you know what this document does" is supposed to stop. That is not a notary being difficult, that is the notary protecting the document from being thrown out later. The same test applies to every one of the bedside and nursing-home signings where this comes up most.
The agent, the person being given the authority, does not need to be there at all. Only the principal signs.
What a notary cannot do with your power of attorney
A notary cannot tell you which power of attorney you need. General, durable, medical, limited: choosing between them is legal advice, and the prohibited acts section says a nonattorney notary shall not assist in drafting, completing, selecting, or understanding a document. We keep the full list on our page about what a Virginia notary cannot do, and it is worth 2 minutes before you book anything.
A notary also cannot notarize a document that names them or their spouse as the agent. Section 47.1-30 rules that out as a direct beneficial interest. People routinely confuse that narrow rule with a much broader one they think exists about notarizing for your own family.
The advance directive is a different animal
Families usually sign a power of attorney and a medical advance directive in the same sitting, and assume both need the same treatment. They do not. Virginia's advance directive statute requires a written advance directive to be signed in front of 2 subscribing witnesses. Notarization is not on the list.
Plenty of families have it notarized anyway, because a hospital in another state has no idea what Virginia requires and a notary seal ends the argument. That is a practical choice, not a legal requirement, and it is a good example of why the paperwork that protects a family is rarely just 1 document.
Where people actually get stuck
- The principal already signed it. The acknowledgment happens in front of the notary. A page signed last week usually gets re-signed. This is the number 1 wasted trip, and it is on the same list as everything else you need to have ready before a notary arrives.
- The ID is expired. Say so when you book, not at the table.
- Nobody arranged witnesses. The power of attorney may not need them. The advance directive signed 5 minutes later does.
- The signing is at a bedside and nobody checked the facility rules. Most have them, and whether a will needs the same treatment is not the same question as whether the hospital will let a visitor in at 8pm.
What it costs
The notarial act itself is capped by the state, and a power of attorney signed by 1 person is 1 act. If you are having the notary come to you, the trip is quoted separately and agreed before anyone drives. The full breakdown of what a notary costs in Virginia is its own post, because the word act does not mean what most people think it means.