Hi,
It seems to me that doing a power of attorney is the norm for property purchases in Spain.
Does anybody have any comments on them,are they the norm,and if so once the property is completed is it then normal to revoke them so that people in other countries dont have power on your behalf?
Any comments gratefully received.
Regards
These are mostly used for those times when the person who should sign are not or cannot be present when a signature is required. They are very common but should only be given to a person or organisation which is 100% trusted. There is an excelllent Notary near Picaddilly Circus in London which has drawn up POA’s for me with both English and Spanish on the same page so there is no misunderstanding as to the meaning. They can be as open as you wish or as limited as you wish, depending on the circumstances and I generally revoke any POA’s when no longer needed or if I just want to.
hello can the first contract be sent to you by post? and can you give power to buying property only, so it is worded for buying that particular property?would that be safer thanks
You can have the contract sent by post but would it have to be signed in front of a Notary and then a so called “Apostille” obtained from the Foreign office. However, it may even be nevessary to have it signed in the nearest Spanish Consulate depending on the applicable laws of the province where you are buying. You should check with your lawyer. As mentioned earlier the wording can be as you wish, limited to the purchase of a particular property or for example merely to present and collect documents on your behalf etc.
We are about to give Power of Attorney to our new lawyer so are very interested in this topic.
Last year we gave Power of Attorney to a legal team who were recommended by the residents association committee of our development. There were five lawyers named and one graduate social.
We met with one of the lawyers and agreed that a civil case would be brought (he said that to take our case to the penal court would be “a guarantee of taking 20 years”). We left our paperwork, including our purchase contract, and cheques for 3,000 euros with the graduate social.
The case was taken to the penal court by one of the other lawyers, entirely contrary to our instructions.
When we objected to this we were informed that when you give your case to a lawyer that it is their decision how to proceed and not your place to question them as they know best. They do not have to follow your instructions or ask your permission. You do not have automatic right to see the paperwork they prepare as they retain intellectual ownership of the content.
As far as we know the PoA was a standard format giving permission to deal with the court. Obviously at the time we thought we could trust the people concerned but we were wrong.
How can you protect yourself against this risk when giving a PoA?
I can understand your anger and frustration. Certainly any lawyers I have dealt with would be expected to discuss with me the reason for wishing to change from civil to penal if a decision had already been taken to use the civil courts. With regard to documentation I would remind the lawyers who is paying them. There would not be any documents without your money!
I would not expect to have to cover such a situation in a PoA bt it could be done. It’s just that it would be very cumbersome to do so. Have you requested an explanation from the initial lawyer with whom it was agreed to use the civil courts?
We did ask the original lawyer for an explanation – he has now said that he had no further involvement in our case.
As all of the lawyers are Spanish we had to go via the graduate social as she employs a translator. She is now ignoring our emails.
Our purchase contract is (apparently) the only one of perhaps 600+ contracts which incorporates confirmation that there will be a golf course in the development. This is one reason this group of lawyers were so keen to get our paperwork.
The original lawyer has used our purchase contract in a case he is bringing for the residents association.
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