Power of Attorney

What you need it for

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Spain - Property

Are you not able to attend the notary? Will you be instructing someone to sign on your behalf? This may be a relative, friend or solicitor. Then a Power of Attorney is drawn up. In Spanish it’s called Poder.

It is very important the contents, meaning the permissions given to a second party, in the Power of Attorney are complete. This is very important especially if finance is involved. If you are buying a property and finance is involved firstly you need to make sure the Power of Attorney will include all people who are buying the property. It may sound obvious, but small mistakes have been made in the past.

A lot of banks insist on life insurance. Establish this beforehand and all relevant paperwork can be sorted prior to completion. If life insurance is compulsory it is important that this is mentioned in the Power of Attorney otherwise at notary completion may be postponed.

The bank is likely to insist you open a bank account with them. The mortgage repayments will be taken directly from the account in the way of direct debit. According to directives from “Banco de España” a bank is not allowed to open an account unless the person is physically there to sign for it. This is usually however ignored since the person may need to send money to Spain and upon arrival it can then be signed. However with a Power of Attorney which includes that the assigned person is allowed to firstly open the account and secondly the assigned person is allowed to withdraw from the account, then the problem is solved. It is also advisable that the assigned person is allowed to sign for the direct debit instructions. There have been occasions where, in the Power of Attorney, there is no time limit or limit on how much the assigned person is allowed to have the facility for. This is of course extremely dangerous and could result in the loss of ones own funds if the assigned person abuses the situation. Always make sure there is a time limit as well as a monetary limit.

If you are re-mortgaging or releasing capital from your property, the original Power of Attorney cannot be used unless the word “re-hipoteca” is included. Many completions have been delayed because of the lack of this power.

A Power of Attorney is a document which is prepared and duly stamped at the notary. It is still possible to have a Power of Attorney drawn up abroad. The language used has to be Spanish. It also has to be “apostilled” according to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961.