Planning for incapacity in Spain: the preventive power of attorney, the support measures of 2021 and what a foreign retiree should sign before it is needed

A couple who retired to Costa Adeje twelve years ago. He has had a stroke; the neurologist speaks of a slow recovery and of decisions that will have to be taken for him for a while. The bank will not let her move money from the account that is in his name alone, the hospital asks who speaks for him, and the apartment they meant to sell this winter cannot be sold without his signature. Nothing was signed in advance, so the road ahead runs through the court in Arona, a forensic doctor and a procedure the law calls provisión judicial de apoyos. One afternoon at a notary, two or three years earlier, would have replaced all of it with a deed of a few pages. This article explains what Spanish law has offered since 2021 to the person who plans ahead, which deed does what and from when, what the Supreme Court decided about a Las Palmas family in 2024 and about a company share in 2026, what happens when nothing was signed, how the bank reads each paper, and what a foreign instrument is worth on the islands.

What the 2021 reform changed: support instead of substitution

Ley 8/2021, in force since 3 September 2021, took the incapacitation of adults and the guardianship that followed it out of the Civil Code and replaced them with measures of support, medidas de apoyo, for anyone who needs help to exercise their legal capacity. Article 249 states the principle: the measures exist so that the person can develop their personality and act in law on equal terms with everyone else; the measures of legal or judicial origin Las de origen legal o judicial solo procederán en defecto o insuficiencia de la voluntad de la persona de que se trate, apply only where the person's own will is missing or insufficient; and whoever provides support acts atendiendo a la voluntad, deseos y preferencias de quien lo requiera, according to the will, wishes and preferences of the person who needs it. Deciding in someone's place is the exception, reserved for the case in which, after a considerable effort, that will cannot be determined, and even then the decision must be the one the person would have taken.

Article 250 lists the tools: además de las de naturaleza voluntaria, la guarda de hecho, la curatela y el defensor judicial, besides the voluntary measures, the de facto guardianship, the curatorship and the judicial defender. The order is the law's order of preference. The voluntary measures, the ones you sign, come first; the de facto guardianship of the relative who in fact looks after you comes next; the court comes last, because article 255 ends with the sentence Solo en defecto o por insuficiencia de estas medidas de naturaleza voluntaria, y a falta de guarda de hecho que suponga apoyo suficiente, only in default or by insufficiency of the voluntary measures, and in the absence of a de facto guardianship that provides sufficient support, may the court adopt others. For the reader of this article that sentence is the whole point: what you sign while you can decides who will act for you and how; what you do not sign, a judge will decide with a forensic report on the table.

The preventive power of attorney: two ways to write it

Article 255 opens the door: any adult, foreseeing circumstances that may make the exercise of their capacity difficult, podrá prever o acordar en escritura pública medidas de apoyo relativas a su persona o bienes, may provide or agree in a public deed support measures regarding their person or property, naming who supports them and with what scope, the way the support is given, the control bodies, the safeguards against abuse, conflicts of interest and undue influence, and the mechanisms and dates of review. The instrument almost everyone uses for this is the preventive power of attorney, the poder preventivo of articles 256 to 262, and the law lets you write it in two ways.

The first is the power with a subsistence clause. It is an ordinary power, general or limited, that works from the day you sign it, to which you add what article 256 describes: El poderdante podrá incluir una cláusula que estipule que el poder subsista si en el futuro precisa apoyo en el ejercicio de su capacidad, the grantor may include a clause stipulating that the power subsists if in the future they need support in the exercise of their capacity. In practice the attorney can act for you today, paying the community fees or signing a sale while you are abroad, and simply keeps acting on the day the need comes, with no gap and no new paper.

The second is the power for the case of need only. It sleeps until the need arises, and the grantor decides how that moment is proved: under article 257, para acreditar que se ha producido la situación de necesidad de apoyo se estará a las previsiones del poderdante, the grantor's own provisions govern the proof of the situation of need, and if a formal record is required the law provides for a notarial act, acta notarial que, además del juicio del Notario, incorpore un informe pericial en el mismo sentido, which adds an expert report to the notary's own judgment. You choose the trigger: a certificate from two named doctors, a notarial act with a medical report, a diagnosis. The price of that privacy is a slower start, because the bank and the land registry will want to see the proof before they accept the attorney's signature.

Both forms must be signed in a public deed, and article 260 adds the step the family often forgets: El Notario autorizante los comunicará de oficio y sin dilación al Registro Civil para su constancia en el registro individual del poderdante, the notary sends the deed, without being asked, to the Civil Registry for the grantor's individual record. The Civil Registry Act lists among the facts it records Los poderes y mandatos preventivos, la propuesta de nombramiento de curador y las medidas de apoyo previstas por una persona respecto de sí misma o de sus bienes, preventive powers and mandates, the proposal of a curator and the support measures a person provides for themselves or their property. The entry is for publicity, so that a judge asked for a judicial measure finds the deed; it is not what makes the power valid, as the Supreme Court said in the case below.

What goes inside the deed is yours to decide. Article 258 lets the grantor set, besides the powers themselves, the control measures or bodies they think fit, conditions and instructions, salvaguardas para evitar abusos, conflicto de intereses o influencia indebida y los mecanismos y plazos de revisión de las medidas de apoyo, safeguards against abuse, conflicts of interest and undue influence and the mechanisms and dates of review, and their own causes of extinction. One default rule deserves attention when the attorney is your spouse or partner: el cese de la convivencia producirá su extinción automática, salvo que medie voluntad contraria del otorgante o que el cese venga determinado por el internamiento de este, the end of cohabitation extinguishes the power automatically unless the grantor provided otherwise or the separation is due to the grantor's admission to a care home or hospital. The attorney exercises the powers personally and may delegate single acts, never the decisions that protect the person.

Then comes the sentence that changes a general power. Article 259 says that when the power carries a subsistence clause, or is granted only for the case of need, and in either case covers all the grantor's business, the attorney, once the need has arisen, quedará sujeto a las reglas aplicables a la curatela en todo aquello no previsto en el poder, salvo que el poderdante haya determinado otra cosa, is subject to the rules of the curatorship for everything the deed does not provide, unless the grantor decided otherwise. The rules in question are those of articles 284 to 290, and the one that bites is article 287: a representative curator needs the court's authorisation to sell or mortgage property, to make gifts, to borrow or guarantee, to take out life insurance or annuities, to sue, and to do what article 287 lists in fifth place, Aceptar sin beneficio de inventario cualquier herencia o repudiar esta o las liberalidades, accept an inheritance without benefit of inventory or repudiate it. So a child acting under a general preventive power signed after 3 September 2021 who wants to renounce an inheritance on your behalf, or to sell your home, goes to the judge first, unless the deed says they need not. The deed can say exactly that, in whole or in part: it can allow the sale of the home with the duty to deposit the price in an account the other children can see, keep the judge for gifts and loans, and require an annual account to a named person.

What the deed cannot remove, the Supreme Court has said, is the judge's last word: lo que el poderdante no podrá excluir eficazmente es el control judicial, the grantor cannot validly exclude judicial control. That control has four legs: the court's power to order whatever safeguards it sees fit so that the support follows the person's will, wishes and preferences (article 249); the right of any relative entitled to start the support procedure, and of the prosecutor, to ask the court to extinguish the power if the attorney incurs a cause of removal (article 258); interim measures while a case is pending; and the duty to render accounts when the power ends. There is also the rule of article 1732, which since 2021 ends an ordinary mandate Por la constitución en favor del mandante de la curatela representativa como medida de apoyo para el ejercicio de su capacidad jurídica, a salvo lo dispuesto en este Código respecto de los mandatos preventivos, by the constitution of a representative curatorship for the principal, save what the Code provides for preventive mandates: the preventive power survives a curatorship; an ordinary power does not.

The same appointment can carry a second, cheaper document, the autocuratela of articles 271 to 274: in a public deed you propose, or exclude, the person who would be your curator if a court ever had to appoint one, and you set rules for that curatorship, from the care of your person to the administration of your property, the curator's pay and the controls. Article 272 makes the proposal binding on the judge, who may depart from it only by a reasoned decision, if grave circumstances you did not know of appear or the reasons you stated have changed. For a person with no one to trust with a power, or with children who do not get on, naming who may never be curator is sometimes the most useful page of the deed.

What the Supreme Court decided: a Las Palmas family in 2024 and a company share in 2026

The first case is from Las Palmas and the Supreme Court decided it in plenary session on 4 November 2024 (sentencia 1449/2024). A woman born in 1937, with a mild cognitive impairment and an Alzheimer's diagnosis, had signed on 20 April 2021, before the reform came into force, a general power in favour of two of her children with a clause providing that it would not lapse if she lost capacity. A third child, who had sued eight days later to have her incapacitated, asked after the reform for a curatorship instead. The court of first instance, the Audiencia Provincial de Las Palmas and finally the Supreme Court refused. The reasons are the map of the whole subject. A power signed before 3 September 2021 is subject to the new law, because the third transitional provision of Ley 8/2021 says that Los poderes y mandatos preventivos otorgados con anterioridad a la entrada en vigor de la presente Ley quedarán sujetos a esta, but the same provision spares those older powers the rules of articles 284 to 290, so the attorney needs no bond, no inventory and no prior judicial authorisation; for a power signed after that date, article 259 applies unless the deed excludes it. The entry in the Civil Registry is not a condition of validity: La validez y la eficacia del poder no está supeditada a su inscripción en el Registro Civil, the power was valid although the notary had never sent it to the registry. And the rule that decides the case: si existe un poder preventivo general que resulte suficiente no procede constituir la curatela, where a general preventive power exists and is sufficient, no curatorship is constituted. The judges interviewed the mother, read the forensic report and the psychiatric one, listened to the daughter who worked in a bank and explained the family's loans, and found the support being given adequately and in line with the mother's wishes; the son who disagreed with his siblings was left with the judicial control described above, which the Court took care to say remains open if concrete risks appear.

The second case is about an ordinary power that nobody had thought to make preventive, and the Supreme Court decided it on 9 February 2026 (sentencia 175/2026). A man with an Alzheimer's diagnosis of 2008 signed a very broad general power in favour of a daughter in 2010, at a time when, according to the courts, his capacity to grant it had not been disproved. In December 2011, when the courts found he could no longer understand or want, the daughter used the power to buy from him, for herself and at the book value of a single share, the one share that gave control of the family company. He was incapacitated by a judgment of 2012 and died in 2017; two grandchildren, legatees of the shares under his will, sued. The Supreme Court held the sale ineffective because the power had already ended: under article 1732 as it read from 2003 to 2021, a mandate ended with the principal's loss of capacity unless the deed provided for its continuation or had been granted for that very case, and this one said nothing: La recurrente debería haber acreditado que el poder se otorgó para que desplegara efectos a partir de la pérdida de capacidad del poderdante o para que subsistiera aunque el poderdante perdiera su capacidad, the attorney should have proved that the power was meant to take effect on, or survive, the loss of capacity, and she had not. For the owner of a Spanish home who signed an ordinary power for a sale or a purchase years ago, the lesson is direct. A power meant to work after the loss of capacity says so in writing, in the words of article 256 or 257; a power that does not may be worth nothing on the one day it is needed, and anything signed under it that day may be undone years later.

If nothing was signed: the de facto guardian, the court and the curatorship

Most families start here. The spouse who manages the pension and the appointments, the daughter who flies in every month, are what the Code calls the guardador de hecho, the de facto guardian, and article 263 lets them carry on: whoever has been exercising the guardianship adequately continuará en el desempeño de su función incluso si existen medidas de apoyo de naturaleza voluntaria o judicial, siempre que estas no se estén aplicando eficazmente, continues in the role even where voluntary or judicial measures exist that are not being applied effectively. The guardian's limit is representation. When the guardian must act in the person's name, article 264 says they habrá de obtener la autorización para realizarla a través del correspondiente expediente de jurisdicción voluntaria, en el que se oirá a la persona con discapacidad, must obtain the authorisation through a voluntary-jurisdiction file in which the person is heard, and always for the acts of article 287; the exception is modest: No será necesaria autorización judicial cuando el guardador solicite una prestación económica a favor de la persona con discapacidad, no authorisation is needed to claim a benefit for the person, nor for acts of little economic weight. The court may at any time ask the guardian to report and to render accounts.

The reform's design was that an adequate de facto guardianship makes the court unnecessary, and in simple cases it does. The Supreme Court tempered the rule in two judgments of 20 October 2023 (1443/2023 and 1444/2023): where the person can no longer consent and someone must sign for them every week, the need to go back to the court for one authorisation after another shows that the guardianship is insufficient, so la existencia de una guarda de hecho no excluye en todo caso la constitución de un apoyo judicial, the existence of a de facto guardianship does not in every case exclude a judicial measure. In June 2024 (sentencia 875/2024) the Court applied it to a son who had lived with his mother for seven years and asked to be made her representative curator because acting for her before third parties without it was difficult: Una alternativa legal no tiene por qué convertirse en una imposición legal, a legal alternative need not become a legal imposition. The provincial court of Tenerife followed the same line on 13 March 2026 (auto 108/2026): a man with a severe disability had been cared for for years by two sisters, the court of first instance refused to appoint them curators because they were already his de facto guardians, and the Audiencia reversed it, appointing both as representative curators for his health, his care and his money, with an annual account and a review in one year, because every medical or banking step needed a signature he could not give.

The judicial route itself is in the Voluntary Jurisdiction Act, articles 42 bis a to 42 bis c. Será competente para conocer de este expediente el Juzgado de Primera Instancia del lugar donde resida la persona con discapacidad, the competent court is the court of first instance of the place where the person lives, which for Costa Adeje means the courts of Arona. The person, the spouse or partner, the descendants, ascendants and siblings, and the prosecutor may start it, and anyone may report the facts to the prosecutor, who then must. The application carries the documents that show the need and an expert report from social and health professionals proposing the measures; the court may ask the public body for disabled people's autonomy to report on alternatives; and the heart of the file is a hearing in which the judge interviews the person and tells them what alternatives exist, including the voluntary measures they can still sign, which end the file if the person chooses one. If the person opposes any support, or the prosecutor or any relative opposes the measures asked for, the voluntary file ends and the matter goes to a contested trial, with provisional measures for up to thirty days. A curatorship, article 269, is constituted by a reasoned decision only cuando no exista otra medida de apoyo suficiente para la persona con discapacidad, when no other sufficient support measure exists; the decision lists the acts for which the person needs assistance, names the acts, if any, for which the curator represents them, and En ningún caso podrá incluir la resolución judicial la mera privación de derechos, may in no case consist of a mere deprivation of rights. The measures are proportionate to the need and Las medidas de apoyo adoptadas judicialmente serán revisadas periódicamente en un plazo máximo de tres años, judicially adopted measures are reviewed within three years at most, six in exceptional cases. The Supreme Court polices the proportion: in October 2024 (sentencia 1383/2024) it cut a representative curatorship back to assistance for a man who understood his finances and asked to go on managing his monthly income, leaving the curator a supervisory role over larger disposals.

How the bank reads each paper

The Bank of Spain explains on its page of 24 February 2026 that the 2021 reform changed what banks must accept, and that it sits as an observer in a standing working group with the Public Prosecutor's Office and the three banking associations to agree good practice. That group produced the protocol of July 2023 on the protection of the property of vulnerable account holders, an interpretive document of the same year on de facto guardianship, and a visual guide of February 2026 on how a de facto guardian operates an account. The guide describes three modes: assistance without representation, where the person decides and signs and the guardian co-signs to record the support; assistance with specific authorisations the person grants; and representative guardianship, where the guardian signs in the person's name for ordinary needs. All three rest on a declaración responsable, a declaration signed by the guardian, the person and the bank that fixes what the guardian may do and see, and the guide adds that a notarial act of notoriety is not compulsory but is the suitable way of proving the guardianship in one document, which the bank may ask for when the person can no longer express themselves. Within those modes the guardian pays bills and sets up direct debits; loans, life insurance, annuities and investments need the court, as article 287 says.

A preventive power is read differently, because it is the person's own instruction. A power with a subsistence clause is in force from the day it was signed, and the branch that already has a copy simply goes on honouring it; a power for the case of need is honoured once the proof the deed demands is shown, usually the notarial act with the medical report. The practical advice is the same for both: take a certified copy to the bank while you can still confirm it in person, make sure the branch records it, and ask the attorney to keep the statements the deed tells them to keep.

Residents, non-residents and the foreign power

Two conflict rules of the Civil Code decide which law governs, and foreign readers should know both. Article 9.6 says that La ley aplicable a las medidas de apoyo para personas con discapacidad será la de su residencia habitual, the law applicable to support measures is that of the person's habitual residence, that a move to another State switches the applicable law, that measures agreed in other States are recognised in Spain, and that Spanish law applies to urgent and provisional measures. Article 10.11 governs voluntary representation: unless the deed chooses a law, a la voluntaria, de no mediar sometimiento expreso, la ley del país en donde se ejerciten las facultades conferidas, the law of the country where the powers are exercised. The consequence for a resident of Costa Adeje or Corralejo is that Spanish law governs their support measures whatever their passport says, and a Spanish preventive power is the natural instrument. The consequence for the owner who lives abroad and keeps an apartment on the islands is that their protection is governed by the law of their home country, but a power to be used in Spain is read under Spanish law when it is exercised here, so a Spanish deed for the Spanish assets is the instrument the notary, the bank and the land registry will accept without a translation and without a debate.

That debate exists because Spain is not a party to the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the international protection of adults. The status table of the Hague Conference, read on 21 October 2026, lists seventeen contracting States, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and Portugal among them and Ireland since 1 September 2024, and no signature by Spain. The Convention contains the rule that would settle most cross-border powers: under its article 15 the existence, extent and extinction of a power of representation granted by an adult are governed by the law of the adult's habitual residence when the power was granted, unless the adult chose in writing the law of their nationality, of a former residence or of the place where property lies, and under article 18 that rule applies even where the law it designates is that of a non-contracting State; so a German or French authority reads a power granted by a resident of Tenerife under Spanish law. The European Union has been trying to close the gap since 2023 with two texts, a decision authorising the member States to join the Convention and a regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition for the protection of adults. On the day we write this neither is in force: by a note of 16 July 2026 the Council's secretariat asked the member States' representatives to approve the draft decision in principle and to send it to the European Parliament for its consent, and the regulation was at the stage of the Council's general approach in March 2026.

Until then a foreign instrument, a British lasting power of attorney, a German Vorsorgevollmacht, a Dutch levenstestament, reaches a Spanish notary under the Act on international legal cooperation. Foreign public documents are enforceable in Spain if they are enforceable where they were issued and not contrary to public policy, provided they have at least the equivalent efficacy of a Spanish one; notaries and public officials, says article 57 of that Act, podrán adecuar al ordenamiento español las instituciones jurídicas desconocidas en España, sustituyéndolas por otra u otras que tengan en nuestra legislación efectos equivalentes y persigan finalidades e intereses similares, may adapt to Spanish law institutions unknown in Spain by replacing them with the ones that have equivalent effects and similar purposes; the registrar does the same for the land registry, and any interested party may challenge the adaptation in court. Before any of that, the document needs the apostille of the 1961 Hague Convention and a sworn translation, and the notary must satisfy himself that the foreign authority performed a function equivalent to a Spanish notary's and that the power is in force and sufficient. It can be done; it takes weeks, it depends on the notary and on the bank's compliance department, and a sale can fall through while it is debated. The robust route is a Spanish preventive power for the Spanish assets, drafted to sit beside the home instrument, with the lawyer at home told what it says so that the two never contradict each other.

Health decisions: the advance directive and the Canary registry

A preventive power can cover decisions about health and care, and the power in the Las Palmas case did. The document a hospital will actually look for, though, is the advance directive, instrucciones previas, which article 11 of the patient-autonomy Act of 2002 describes as the paper in which an adult states in advance their will on care and treatment for the moment when they can no longer express it, and on the destination of their body or organs after death, and in which they may name a representative to speak with the medical team. Each regional health service sets the procedure, and a national registry gathers every regional one so that the document is found in any Spanish hospital.

In the Canary Islands the document is called manifestación anticipada de voluntad and its procedure is in Decreto 13/2006 of 8 February, which Ley 1/2015 of the islands' Parliament confirms. It may be formalised before a notary, before the official of the regional registry, or before three witnesses who are not the signer's spouse or partner, relatives to the second degree, or people bound to them by an employment, property or service relationship. Registration is voluntary for the notarial document and immediate for the one signed before the registry official; the one signed before witnesses sólo tendrán plena eficacia y serán vinculantes para el Sistema Canario de la Salud a partir del momento de la inscripción en el Registro, binds the Canary health service only from the day it is registered. The entry is copied into the person's clinical record and forwarded to the national registry. The regional health department takes appointments through the 012 telephone line, in person at the registry or, with its authorisation, free of charge at any notary of the islands, and its registry counted 28,276 people with a valid document in August 2026, according to the department's figures reported by the Canarian press on 15 August 2026. The directive and the preventive power complement each other: the power's attorney deals with the bank, the tenants and the notary; the directive's representative stands beside the doctor; the same person may hold both roles, and should know in advance what you would want.

What to decide before the notary

• Who, and how many. One attorney or several, acting jointly or each alone, with a substitute if the first cannot act; and the spouse clause of article 258 if the attorney is your partner.
• When it starts. From the signature with a subsistence clause under article 256, or only when the need arises under article 257, with the proof you choose: a notarial act with a medical report, two named doctors, a diagnosis.
• What it covers. All your business, or a list: the home, the accounts, the pension, the tenancies, the company shares; health, residence and care decisions, within what the health laws allow.
• The judge's authorisations. A general power falls under the curatorship rules for what you do not say, by article 259: keep the court for the sale of the home and for gifts, or exclude it, in writing.
• The safeguards. An annual account to another relative, a second signature above an amount, a review date, a forbidden act; the deed may also lift the prohibition of article 251 on the attorney buying from you or receiving gifts, if that is what you want.
• How it ends. Your own causes of extinction under article 258; the automatic one for a spouse who separates; the court's control, which you cannot remove.
• The registry and the bank. The notary sends the deed to the Civil Registry under article 260; take a certified copy to the bank while you can still confirm it in person.
• The foreign side. Tell your lawyer at home what the Spanish deed says; a foreign instrument for use in Spain needs an apostille, a sworn translation and a notary who can equate it under Ley 29/2015.
• The will and the directive in the same appointment. A Spanish will choosing your national law and an advance directive for the Canary registry cost little more time at the same desk.
• The review. Powers signed before September 2021 may be reviewed at any time to adapt them to the new law, under the fifth transitional provision of Ley 8/2021; every deed deserves a fresh reading when the family or the health changes.

What our team does

The firm's wills and estate-planning practice prepares powers of attorney and advance directives alongside the Spanish will: the deed is drafted in your language and in Spanish, the trigger, the scope and the safeguards are decided with you before the appointment, the notary's signature and the official registration are arranged, and the documents of your home country are coordinated with your lawyer there so that the two never contradict each other. Both offices, Costa Adeje and Corralejo, take these matters in person or by video, in the firm's twelve working languages; write to us or book a consultation and tell us where you live, where your assets are and who you trust.

Common questions

I signed a general power years ago. Does it still work if I lose capacity?

It depends on its date and its words. A power signed before 3 September 2021 with a clause saying it continues if you lose capacity is a voluntary support measure under the new law, free of the curatorship rules on bonds, inventories and authorisations, as the Supreme Court held in November 2024; one signed before that date without such a clause ended with the loss of capacity, as the Court held in February 2026. A general power signed after that date without the clause ends when a representative curatorship is constituted for you; add the clause, and decide whether you keep or exclude the rules of article 259.

Can my children use a British lasting power of attorney or a German Vorsorgevollmacht in Spain?

Not automatically. Spain is not a party to the 2000 Hague Convention, so the foreign document reaches the Spanish notary under the Act on international legal cooperation, with an apostille and a sworn translation, and the notary must equate it to a Spanish institution and satisfy himself that it is in force and sufficient; the bank's compliance department does its own reading. It can be done and it takes weeks. For the Spanish assets, a Spanish preventive power avoids the debate.

Who decides that the moment has come under a power for the case of need?

You do, in the deed. Article 257 leaves the proof to the grantor's own provisions, and the usual choice is a notarial act in which the notary records their judgment and attaches a medical report, sometimes the certificates of two named doctors. Until that proof exists the attorney has no power; from that day they have all the powers the deed gives.

Does the attorney need a judge to sell my apartment?

Under a general preventive power signed after 3 September 2021, yes, unless the deed says otherwise: article 259 applies the curatorship rules to everything the deed does not provide, and article 287 reserves the sale of property for the court's authorisation. The deed can allow the sale without a judge and attach its own safeguards, and a power signed before the reform is free of those rules under the third transitional provision of Ley 8/2021.

What happens if the family disagrees with the attorney?

Any relative entitled to start the support procedure, and the prosecutor, may ask the court to extinguish the power if the attorney incurs a cause of removal, and the court may order safeguards at any time; what the court will not do, as the Las Palmas case shows, is replace a general preventive power that is working with a curatorship because one child would have preferred to be in charge.

General information on the law as it stands in October 2026 (Código Civil, articles 9, 10, 249, 250, 251, 255 to 264, 268, 269, 271, 272, 287 and 1732; Ley 8/2021, transitional provisions three and five; Ley 15/2015, articles 42 bis a to 42 bis c; Ley 20/2011, articles 4 and 77; Ley 41/2002, article 11; Decreto 13/2006 of the Canary Islands and Ley 1/2015 of the Canary Islands, article 9; Ley 29/2015, articles 56 to 61; Sentencias del Tribunal Supremo 1449/2024, 175/2026, 1443/2023, 1444/2023, 875/2024 and 1383/2024; Auto de la Audiencia Provincial de Santa Cruz de Tenerife 108/2026; the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000, articles 15 and 18; the Bank of Spain's page of 24 February 2026 and its guide of February 2026). It is not advice on a particular case: your residence, your nationality, your documents and the date of each deed decide what applies to you.