How is a representation created?

All representations must contain the following information:
• The principal (name/company name and NIF): can be a natural person or a legal entity.
• The representative (name/company name and NIF): can be a natural person or a legal entity.
• Type of power of attorney: it can be “General”, “To an organization” or “To procedures”. You can consult more details in Types of powers of attorney (section Types of powers of attorney).
• Capacity for which representation is granted for procedures: it can be: “All”, “Consult”, “Process” and/or “Receive notifications”.
• Validity of the power of attorney: indicates the period that the power of attorney will be valid.
• Processing attended to: if it is necessary for the civil servant to carry out the processing on behalf of the interested party.
• Attached documentation that must be provided to prove representation. See the section on Obtaining application templates.

In the event that the power of attorney is created for a particular entity (power of attorney of the type “To an organization”), the Organization field must be filled in with the entity before which the representation is granted.

If the power of attorney is created for a procedure or a set of procedures (power of attorney of the “For procedures” type), the following fields must be reported:
• Organization, with the entity before which representation is granted.
• Procedure(s) for which representation is granted. It is possible to first choose the family of procedures, in order to facilitate the selection of the list of procedures for which representation is granted.

Once you have provided the details of the principal and representative, tabs will appear, as shown in the following image:

You must activate the Registration tab, which will already be activated by default, and fill in the fields as explained in What do I need to create a representation?.

If you need more details on how to register based on the Type of Power of Attorney, you can consult the following points:

• How to register a general power of attorney.
• How to register a power of attorney with an organization.
• How to register a power of attorney for a procedure at an organization.

Yes. According to the arguments that will be presented below, legal entities would be obliged to make and manage powers of attorney electronically.

Granting a power of attorney is not an administrative procedure but the ability to act in the administrative procedure, a prerequisite for acting.

If we look at article 14 of the LPAC, “Right and obligation to interact electronically with Public Administrations” (systematically located in the Law in Title II “On the activity of Public Administrations” Chapter I “General rules of action”), there is a disparate wording regarding the relationship of natural and legal persons with the Administration.

The article mentions the possibility of individuals to interact electronically or not with the Public Administrations and, among these relationships, in addition to the administrative procedure, expressly indicates communication with the Administration. However, in point 2 it specifies that for legal entities there is an obligation to interact electronically with the Public Administrations to carry out any procedure of an administrative procedure.

Therefore, for legal entities the administrative relationship refers to the formalities of an administrative procedure and for individuals it is considered that this relationship can be a mere communication.

Taking into account this discrepancy, that this article is not within Title IV of the provisions on common administrative procedure and that, in addition, the legislator's intention with laws 39 and 40 is to advance in the implementation of electronic administration, a systematic interpretation is made in accordance with the spirit of the norm and electronic processing is considered mandatory for certain groups, including legal entities.

From the Representa application itself, you can generate and print the registration, modification and processing application documents, as they must be completed and signed by the person requesting the registration or modification of a representation.

You will find the different templates in the right sidebar, in the “Document Templates” tab.

• Registration : to request the registration of a new representation that did not previously exist.
• Modification : To make changes to an existing representation, whether to accept, renounce, revoke, or request an extension. We have consolidated these processes into a single form to simplify your options.
• Processing Attended : to authorize the authorized official to process on behalf of the person appearing.

Additionally, in relation to applications for registration of a representation, to avoid the applicant having to fill out the application by hand, sign it and generate an authentic copy of it to incorporate it into the platform, a pre-filled application is offered.

In this way, the manager can enter the data of the principal and representative, as well as the representation data and download the pre-filled application, so that the applicant can sign it and the authentic copy can be generated to include it on the platform.

You can get more information at: How to download a pre-filled application.

In relation to applications for registration of a representation, to avoid the applicant having to fill out the application by hand, sign it and generate an authentic copy of it to incorporate it into the platform, an application pre-filled automatically by the platform is offered, as follows:

1.- The manager must enter the data of the principal and representative, as well as the data of the representation.

2.- Then you must click “Download application”, which will download a pdf.

3.- The downloaded document is the pre-filled application with the applicant, proxy, representative and representation details.

4.- This pre-filled application only needs to be signed by the applicant and an authentic copy is generated to attach to the platform.

To register a representation, the first thing the platform asks us to do is enter the identification number of each of the parties.

Once entered, the platform validates whether or not the identification number already exists on the platform and if it already exists, it loads the data saved there:

However, if it does not exist, it validates its construction and based on this:

• if it is a NIF of an individual, it indicates this and asks us to enter name, surname and contact details - email and/or telephone number - (if we authorize the receipt of notices):

• if it is a NIE of an individual, it indicates this and asks us to enter our name, surname and contact details - email and/or telephone number - (if we authorize the receipt of notices):

• if it is a NIF of a legal entity, it indicates this and asks us to enter the company name and contact details - email and/or telephone - (if we authorize the receipt of notices):

• if it is not a NIF or NIE, it indicates that it will be treated as a passport and asks us to enter name, surname and contact details - email and/or telephone - (if we authorize the receipt of notifications):

In this sense, it is a recommended practice to authorize the receipt of notifications so that interested parties receive a notice each time there is a change in the status of the representation (either by email, by telephone or by both, depending on the data entered). Therefore, contact details are not mandatory but recommended.

On the Registration tab, select the General option as the authorization type:

The following fields must be reported:

• Capacity for which representation is granted for procedures. This capacity can be: “All”, “Consult”, “Process” and/or “Receive notifications”.
• Validity: period of time that the representation will remain in effect. Is there a maximum period?
• Attended processing: if it is a power of attorney "apud acta" by personal appearance at the registration assistance offices. You can consult the Attach documentation for an attended processing section for more information on this process.
• Attached documents: you must include all the necessary documentation to be able to prove the representation. You can consult the Attaching documentation to a representation section for more information on this process.

Once all the fields have been filled in, click on the button , and the platform will automatically redirect the representation to the following states:

• Pending acceptance: if the representation has been created at the request of the principal and does not have attached documentation to validate, pending acceptance by the representative.
• Pending validation: if the representation has attached documentation that supports the representation (has been created at the request of the principal or representative) and it must be reviewed by the validator profile.

It should be noted that a General power of attorney implies not having other types of powers of attorney active, specifically:

• Power of attorney “To an organization” , so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal in any administrative action before a specific Administration or organization.
• Power of attorney “for procedures” , so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal only to carry out certain procedures specified in the power of attorney before a specific Administration or body.

On the Registration tab, select the To an organization option as the type of authorization:

The following fields must be reported:

• Capacity for which representation is granted for procedures. This capacity can be: “All”, “Consult”, “Process” and/or “Receive notifications”.
• Agency: entity before which the representative may act on behalf of the principal for any administrative action in this agency.
• Validity: period of time that the representation will remain valid.
• Attended processing: if it is a power of attorney “apud acta” by personal appearance at the registration assistance offices. Consult the section on Attaching documentation for an attended processing for more information on this process.
• Attached documents: you must include all the necessary documentation to be able to prove the representation. See the Attaching documentation to a representation section for more information on this process.

Once all the fields have been filled in, click on the button , and the platform will automatically redirect the representation to the following states:

• Pending acceptance: if the representation has been created at the request of the principal and does not have attached documentation to validate, pending acceptance by the representative.
• Pending validation: if the representation has attached documentation that supports the representation (has been created at the request of the principal or representative) and it needs to be reviewed by the validator profile

It should be noted that a power of attorney "To an organization" implies not having other types of powers of attorney active, specifically:

• “General” power of attorney, so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal in any administrative action before any Administration.
• Power of attorney “For procedures” , so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal only to carry out certain procedures specified in the power of attorney before this Administration.

In the Registration tab, select the option of A tramitas as the type of power of attorney:

The following fields must be reported:

• Organization: entity before which the representative may act on behalf of the principal to carry out certain procedures in this organization.

• Capacity for which representation is granted for procedures. This capacity can be: “All”, “Consult”, “Process” and/or “Receive notifications”.
• Procedure: select the procedure/s for which the power of attorney is granted. The list of procedures can also be chosen from a family of procedures. Selecting a family of procedures means that we are granting representation for each of the procedures that make up this family.
  • IMPORTANT: if procedures are added to a family, it does not mean that new representations are granted to the representative.
  • IMPORTANT: If a family has procedures removed, it does not mean that representations granted to the representative are revoked/waived.

• Validity: period of time that the representation will remain valid.
• Attended processing: if it is a power of attorney "apud acta" by personal appearance at the registration assistance offices. Consult the section on Attaching documentation for an attended processing for more information on this process.
• Attached documents: you must include all the necessary documentation to be able to prove the representation. See the Attaching documentation to a representation section for more information on this process.

Once all the fields have been filled in, click on the button , and the platform will automatically redirect the representation to the following states:

• Pending acceptance: if the representation has been created at the request of the principal and does not have attached documentation to validate, pending acceptance by the representative.
• Pending validation: if the representation has attached documentation that supports the representation (has been created at the request of the principal or representative) and it needs to be reviewed by the validator profile

It should be noted that a power of attorney "In process" implies not having other types of powers of attorney active, specifically:

• “General” power of attorney, so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal in any administrative action before any Administration.
• Power of attorney “To an organization” , so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal in any administrative action before this entity.

The way to carry out a representation with attended processing, at an operational level, is the same as a representation without attended processing. The only difference is that it is necessary to:

1. mark this case when registering
2. attach the request for processing in which the applicant authorizes the public worker to register the representation
3. the public worker must sign the discharge upon completion

At a legal level, however, it is necessary that public workers who carry out this task are considered qualified civil servants.

In the process of registering a representation, documentation must be provided to be able to legally accredit and justify the representation.

The request submitted by the person appearing must always be attached, whether it is a registration request, a modification/deregistration request or a request for processing to be attended to.

Additionally, if the representation is based on previously existing documentation, this must also be included with the application.

If no other document is attached in addition to the request of the person appearing, the representation will go to “Pending acceptance”, waiting for the other party to accept it. On the other hand, if more documentation is attached, the representation will go to “Pending validation” for analysis and review of the “Validador” profile of the specific administration, which will decide whether to accept or deny it.

To attach the documentation, you must:

• Select the type of documentation that we want to include in the registration. It is very important that you correctly indicate the type of document, since the platform requires that you attach at least one "application" type document so that the representation can be registered. Additionally, if you attach other documentation, you must correctly categorize it as "Power of Attorney" or "Other".
• Describe the documentation you are incorporating.
• And finally, embed the document. This can be done in 3 different ways:
  • Generating an electronic copy with the CÒPIA service of the AOC Consortium.
  • Uploading an electronic copy generated through other services of authentic electronic copies of paper documents.
  • Reporting the CSV code of the document, to know the existence of the power of attorney and download the simple copy of the notarial power of attorney. (The secure verification code (CSV) is a code that is found in each document and is a unique reference that allows access to the same document in electronic format to verify its authenticity). More information: What is Representa and what does it do? Section: Is Representa integrated with other power of attorney registers?

Once all the data has been entered, click on the Save button, and return to the performance registration screen/tab.

When this processing case is selected:

The service informs that at the time of registration of the representation, the authorized official will need to sign this representation on behalf of the citizen. It is for this reason that when this option is selected, the first document that must be included in the registration of this representation is precisely the document of delegation of signature that the citizen makes to the authorized official:

In this case, you must inform:

• Description: description of the type of document we are providing for representation. In this case it is the “ Request for delegation of signature ”
• Document: you can incorporate the "paper document" provided by the citizen, through:
  • Generating an electronic copy with the CÒPIA service of the AOC Consortium.
  • Uploading an electronic copy generated through other services of authentic electronic copies of paper documents.

The maximum size of a document attached to the Representa is 25 Mb. In relation to representations, the maximum number of documents to be attached is 10 documents.

To modify the data, on the home screen, you must include the NIF or passport of the person requesting the modification and press “Modify”.

Then, you can change the data:

• Name
• Surnames
• Email
• Telephone
• Allow or not to receive warnings from the platform

Once the data has been modified, you must press “Save” and the data will appear modified.

The platform checks that there are no matching representations between two people, preventing their creation.

In this way, if you create a representation that totally or partially coincides in scope and/or time with another, this error message appears and generation is not allowed.

As we can see, it does not allow us to create representation in the Barcelona City Council, with the capacity of all, for the period 26/9/2020-26/09/2021 given that previously between these two people a General power of attorney had already been granted with the capacity of All for the period 26/9/2020-26/10/2020 which partially coincides with the previous one.

When Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations regulates the functions of assisting interested parties (to sign documents on behalf of interested parties who are not obliged to do so and to make authentic copies), it attributes this to public officials. Furthermore, this authorisation must be registered in the Register of Qualified Officials.

Although the seventh final provision, on the entry into force of the law, uses the expression " public employees ", there is a doctrinal consensus in affirming that the legislator's intention is to designate civil servants in the strict sense (career or interim) to carry out these functions.

In practice, however, many public entities (especially the smallest ones) do not have civil servants on staff, which can pose a problem from the point of view of the operation of REPRESENTA since, in theory, they will not have any material means of assisting those interested.

In accordance with Law 39/2015, of October 1, representations registered in the electronic registers of powers of attorney will have a maximum validity of 5 years from the date of registration, without prejudice to the fact that, before the end of this period, the principal extends or revokes this power of attorney.

In the event of an extension, the maximum duration of the representation will be 5 years from the date of registration and it may be extended successively within the 5 years established for the validity of your registration.

It should be noted that the term of office of public limited companies is 6 years (Royal Legislative Decree 1/2010, of 2 July). Therefore, it may be the case that a legal representation based on notarial powers of attorney, duly registered in REPRESENTA after validation of the powers of attorney, is recorded as expired because 5 years have passed but the power of attorney on which the registration is based remains valid, remaining for 1 year.

In this case, if the representative takes any action on behalf of the principal, they should provide a copy of the deed or register a new representation for a period of 1 year.

You can consult the extension procedure