A power of attorney is a person's authorization for a third party to act on their behalf.
Difference between legal and voluntary representation?
If it is of a legal type, it means that the representation is necessary or mandatory because it is established by a rule with the rank of law; for example, legal entities cannot act by themselves but need a person to take care of them.
On the other hand, a voluntary representation is one that is not determined legally, for example, the one granted in favor of the spouse or family member to present a request to a public body.
Types of powers of attorney
Three types of powers of attorney are defined:
- " General" power of attorney , so that the agent can act on behalf of the agent in any administrative action and before any Administration.
- Power of attorney "To an organization" , so that the authorized representative can act on behalf of the power of attorney in any administrative action before an Administration or a specific organization.
- "Procedural" power of attorney, so that the attorney can act on behalf of the power of attorney only to carry out certain procedures specified in the power of attorney before a specific Administration or body.
Additionally, representations must also indicate capabilities, which can be:
- All (which includes Process, View, and Receive Notifications), or,
- The combination of the partial capacities (Process, Consult and Receive notifications), which can be:
- Process
- consult
- Receive notifications
- Process and Consult
- Process and Receive notifications
- Consult and Receive notifications
What are the possible states of a representation? (life cycle)
The possible states of a representation are:
- VALID >> Representation valid and valid.
- PENDING VALIDATION >> Documentation has been provided that must be reviewed and validated in order to change the status to VALID or DENIED.
- IN VALIDATION >> From the VALIDATION PENDING state, a representation can be transitioned to this state by the VALIDATOR role to indicate that it is evaluating the representation to decide whether to accept or deny it. From this state it can go to VALID, DENIED or back to PENDING VALIDATION. When a Validation query is made a representation in this state cannot be used to answer affirmatively.
- PENDING_ACCEPTACIÓ >> The power of attorney or representative has made a representation without documentation to be validated and the other party must explicitly accept it to change the status to VALID. Any of the two parties, however, can decide to cancel it, going from RESIGNED to REVOCATED (depending on who does the action). When a Validation inquiry is made a representation in this state cannot be used to answer affirmatively. After 40 days in this state, if it has not been accepted or canceled (revocation or resignation), it automatically becomes void.
- SIGNATURE PENDING >> Once the service receives a request for registration or modification of a representation, a signed evidence is generated. If this signature fails, this representation is placed in pending signature status and retried until the signature is completed correctly.
- DENIED >> Once the documentation attached to the registration has been reviewed and the representation denied.
- EXPIRED >> A representation that was previously VALID, PENDING ACCEPTANCE or PENDING VALIDATION, but as of the current date is out of its validity period.
- WAIVER >> The representative waives the representation.
- REVOCATION >> The power of attorney revokes the representation.
- CANCELED >> Exceptional state in which the public administration decides to cancel a representation, either because 40 days have passed without being accepted or there is an error in it (e.g. incorrect NIF, name incorrect, mismatched attached documentation, etc.)
Amendment management is not currently allowed within the tool, so if a representation is denied you must re-apply. We're evaluating implementing an amendment management mechanism that allows a rejected representation to generate another one, fixing what's wrong more quickly.
Can citizens directly manage their representations?
Yes, there is a portal so that citizens and companies can consult, create or manage their representations for actions before public administrations.
Access to the portal is through a URL that changes depending on the entity and which is:
https://representa.cat/representa/ciutada?codi=x
x=codI INE10 without initial 0
Therefore, there is one instance for each user registered with the service.
You can consult the list of registered entities in Representa at: Registered entities in Representa