Virginia’s Own “Disclosure Day” Arrives July 1: A new power of attorney privacy rule and why AI chatbot shouldn’t be the one to draft yours.

There’s a Disclosure Day in theaters this summer — Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller about the day the whole world learns we aren’t alone. But, Virginia has its own disclosure day coming on July 1, 2026, and ours is decidedly more down-to-earth: no spaceships, just a change to who is allowed to see the financial records of someone who has handed another person power of attorney. It won’t make headlines. But unlike the movie, this one could actually affect your family.

What does a power of attorney actually do?

In a financial power of attorney (POA), you are the “principal.” The person you name is your “agent” (sometimes called an attorney-in-fact — no law degree required). Your agent can do things like pay your bills, manage accounts, deal with your house, and handle paperwork on your behalf.

In Virginia, a POA is “durable” by default. That means it keeps working even if you later become incapacitated, unless the document says otherwise. But durability is usually the whole point for a POA: you want someone able to act precisely when you no longer can.

It is important to know that your agent isn’t free to do whatever they like. By law they are a fiduciary, which means they must act in good faith, stay within the authority you gave them, and act in your best interest. The statute that spells out those duties also requires your agent to keep records of what comes in, what goes out, and what they do with your property.

The transparency rule built into Virginia law.

Here’s the safety net. Under current Virginia law, your agent generally must show the books on request. They must disclose receipts, disbursements, and transactions to you and, if you’re unavailable or incapacitated, to people like your guardian, your conservator, another fiduciary acting for you, or, after your death, your estate’s personal representative.

Virginia goes a step further than some other states. In Virginia, certain interested people —for example, a spouse, parent, adult child, sibling, or a beneficiary — can also ask for an accounting if they have a good-faith belief that you’re incapacitated. This is one of the main ways families catch financial abuse before it spirals into a catastrophe. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Virginia law does let you limit that disclosure if you have a genuine reason to do so. Courts have enforced broad “my agent need not account to anyone” clauses in the past, even over a worried family’s objections, which is exactly why the legislature decided this kind of waiver shouldn’t be something a person signs without realizing it.

What changes on July 1, 2026?

For powers of attorney created on or after July 1, 2026, you can still tell your agent they don’t have to disclose to those third parties, but only if you clear a higher bar of informed, deliberate consent. To do so, the POA has to include a specific acknowledgment in which you confirm two things:

•     that you understand the provision limiting your agent’s duty to disclose; and

•     that it reflects your wishes regardless of whether the provision is in your best interest should you later become incapacitated.

In other words, you’re affirming that you are knowingly accepting that you’re switching off a protection designed to help you. This “off switch” can occur in two ways:

•     It can be built into the original POA, and you sign or initial the acknowledgment as part of the document.

•     Alternatively, it can be added later, as an amendment to a POA you already signed, and you must acknowledge your signature before a notary.

Importantly, this change is about turning off third-party disclosure. Your agent’s underlying duty to keep records doesn’t go away, so a record still exists for you, or a court, to reach later if questions ever arise.

What does this mean for most people?

For the vast majority of families, the honest answer is that you probably want the transparency. Thus, this rule won’t change your plan at all. Keeping the default in place means the people who love you can make sure your agent is doing right by you. That’s a comfort, not a constraint.

A disclosure limitation makes sense only in specific situations. For example, it may make sense where there are real privacy concerns or difficult family dynamics where you’ve thought hard about who should and shouldn’t see your finances. The new law doesn’t take that option away. It just makes sure that if you choose it, you’re choosing it on purpose, in writing.

The change is a great example of why AI-generated POAs aren’t reliable.

AI tools are genuinely useful for learning and brainstorming, and other tasks. But a power of attorney isn’t an essay; it’s a legal instrument whose value depends entirely on whether it’s valid, current, and properly executed. This July 1 change is a perfect illustration of where a chatbot quietly lets you down:

•     It’s brand-new law. A general-purpose AI draws on patterns from older material. A requirement that doesn’t take effect until mid-2026 is exactly the kind of thing it’s likely to miss, omit, or get subtly wrong — leaving you with a document that looks fine and isn’t.

•     It won’t spot the traps. Adding a disclosure limit to an existing POA needs a notary acknowledgment; building it into a new one doesn’t. An AI chatbot doesn’t know which path you’re on and won’t flag the difference.

•     It can’t do the human parts. AI can’t confirm you have the capacity to sign, can’t notarize, can’t weigh whether a disclosure waiver is even a good idea for your family, and can’t be held responsible if it’s wrong. Those aren’t rote formalities. They’re what make the document work and ensure that the document is valid.

The risk with a DIY-with-AI POA usually isn’t a dramatic, obvious failure. It’s a document that sits in a drawer looking official until the day your family needs it, but a bank or a court finds a fatal gap. By then, you may not be able to fix it. That’s the worst possible time to discover a shortcut didn’t hold.

The bottom line.

A power of attorney decides who can act for you, and how openly they must act, at the most vulnerable moment of your life. Virginia’s new rule reinforces a simple truth, which is that these choices deserve real understanding and real care. If you have a POA from a few years ago, or you’ve been meaning to put one in place, this is a good time to have it reviewed by an attorney who knows the law that’s coming, not just the law that was.

So while Disclosure Day the movie asks whether you could handle the truth about the universe, Virginia’s disclosure day asks a smaller but more personal question: who should be able to see how your affairs are handled when you can’t watch over them yourself? We’d be glad to help you sort out whether your current documents still fit, and whether the July 1 change touches your plan.