New Decade, New Rules for Dating...

….documents. Training your brain to write the correct date when a new year begins is always a hassle. This year, however, is particularly challenging. You must be diligent because writing the 2-digit form of the year “2020” on a document could potentially leave you vulnerable to changed dates.

For most people in recent years when writing out dates they typically shorten the year, such as abbreviating “December 6, 2019” as “12-6-19.” This month many regulatory agencies have pointed out that if the year 2020 is shortened to just “20” when dating a document, a nefarious individual could write in additional numbers later to alter the date of execution. For example, the date “1-28-20” could be:

• Backdated by adding the number 17 at the end, changing the date to “1-28-2017”

• Post-dated by adding a “21” at the end, changing the date to “1-28-2021”

To avoid potential issues, the best practice in the new decade is to write out the full year as “2020” when signing most documents or dating any other important records.