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good morning everyone my name is Meredith Gregory Thank You Hannah for that introduction I am a supervising attorney with the senior law project of legal aid of North Carolina I'm here this morning to talk to you about a few very recent changes to the North Carolina laws that govern the notarization and witnessing of legal documents and this is a brand-new change to the law these new laws went into effect on May 4th of 2020 so literally for days before today so as some background lots of legal documents need to be either notarized or witnessed to be valid and enforceable some examples of those types of documents are end-of-life planning documents like wills powers of attorney that sort of thing and the North Carolina laws that deal with notarization and witnessing say that when Dokken are used to say before this changed that when documents are witnessed or notarized then the person making the document said the principal and the notary and and witnesses if they're needed all have to be in what was called close physical proximity to one another and that was interpreted to mean that they literally had to be those people literally had to be physically close to one another in the same room together and as you can imagine in this time of koban 19 and social distancing all those people being close together in one room together was very concerning and problematic so in this most recent legislative session the North Carolina legislature has just passed some new laws that remove this close physical proximity requirement now by these new laws legal documents can be notarized witnessed by video conference technology so that means things like zoom Skype that sort of thing that lets people see one another and interact with one another by video conferencing another change to the laws is that for some documents the witness requirement has actually been completely removed so for living wills and healthcare powers of attorney those documents no longer mean two witnesses now they do still need to be notarized and a will actually still needs two witnesses as well as being notarized but the healthcare power of attorney and living will do not need two witnesses makes those documents a little bit easier to get executed in this time of kovat 19 and now managing attorney Angela Dorsey is going to talk to you a little bit about what this means for you some resources that are available Thank You Meredith many people put off drafting important documents taking care of end-of-life planning things that are on their to-do list because it's just not pleasant for most people to think about their own death however the pandemic has pushed this to the forefront and it's you know as Meredith explained it's very risky to have multiple people in close proximity to get these documents done so under this new law there are several documents that can be prepared and executed in a safe manner under this new legislation first the healthcare power of attorney is a document that allows the person who's making it to designate another trusted person as their agent who can make and communicate important healthcare decisions for them when they are not able to do so the other document that's impacted by this legislation is the living will and North care that's called the declaration for a desire for a natural death and that is a document whereby the person who makes it is designating what their end-of-life wishes are and these are for end of life situations where the person is very near death and it sets forth what their wishes are for life prolonging measures to be taken or not taken according to their preference neither of those documents now require witnesses but they do need to be notarized and as long as the notary and the principal are in North Carolina and can see each other on some sort of electronic platform like zoom they're going to be valid additionally there are new these new remote notary and remote video witnesses rules can also apply to things like wills so while you still need two witnesses and a notary to formalize your will those witnesses just like the notary and participate in your real signing via video meanings now now this law is not forever most of the provisions only are until August 1st the living will and the healthcare power of attorney the no witness requirement with that also ends August 4th or whenever the emergency declaration is lifted in North Carolina you can get more information about this including forms for the health care power of attorney in the living will at the North Carolina Secretary of State's website at SOS NC gov if you're a low-income person you can get more information or assistance with any of these documents by contacting legal aid senior helpline at 877 five seven nine seven five six two are our main legal aid helpline eight six six two one nine five two six two and if you're not low-income and you need an attorney to help you with this you can also contact the North Carolina Bar Association for your referral service at NC Borg