Power of Attorney and Hague Apostille

Can anyone help?

How do we provide a power of attorney to our Spanish solicitor?

What is the the Hague Apostille which I understand is compulsory for me to provide if handing over power of attorney?

Is it possible to limit the power to certain legal dealings?

Kind regards

Gill

Hi gillcefai,

To assign power of attorney to your solicitor you must go to the notary with them and assign and have the poa witnessed and stamped by the notary.

The power of attorney will allow the solicitor to act on your behalf  when purchasing a property,tranferring monies and signing for the property at notary.

The power is limited and would not allow your solicitor to sell on your behalf.

I have absolutely no idea what the Hague Apostille is!

It is maybe a system that we all take for granted but do not know what it is called.

Hope this helps

Regards

Georgia

Hi gillcefai,

The 2 links below explain the "Hague Apostille"

www.hcch.net

http://www.apostille.org/

Not sure if you are in the UK gillcefai and need a Spanish power of attourney from there.  If you are just go into a Notary there, most cities in the UK have one and they will organise POA with their Spanish collegues in the area of Spain you require.

Mind you it will cost around 800 GBP, so it would be cheaper to get an Easy Jet flight for 10 quid and pay €80 this end for the same thing.

You can choose a POA  (Poder) to buy or buy/sell or if required POA general which permits your lawyer to do everything on your behalf.

Better to limit it to "buy and move funds from your bank for just one conveyance".  It can be cancelled at anytime by taking the original copy to the notary concerned.

Hi Tinto

That took a long time to obtain and also £500 seems a lot of money to pay, maybe we were lucky 1 week and £130  although at the time I thought that was expensive !

Regards

Power of Attorney can be legalised in either Spain or the UK. In either case the terms of the particular document - in other words the faculties granted to the individual or individuals given Power of Attorney - should be considered carefully. In many instances a general Power of Attorney is legalised (Poder General) but this will ordinarily grant wide ranging powers and could go beyond that which is required / intended. As such it is prudent to consider why POA is required and draft the document accordingly with the proviso that you may wish to include certain additional faculties as they may be required at a later date.

If legalised in Spain the document is signed before a Spanish Notary who will charge a fee of around 70 or 80 euros. The Poder will be in Spanish and it should be transalted for you before you sign.

Alternatively the Poder may be legalised in England and this must take place before a Notary Public. You will normally find a Notary Public practising in medium to larger firms of solicitors and most are also solicitors. Based on clients´ experience their fees seem to vary from as little at 80 pounds to 150 pounds or more. For clients we prepare Power of Attorney in English and Spanish and send it to them in the UK for them to legalise before the Notary Public. As such its terms can be clearly understood.

Once legalised before the Notary Public the Apostille must be attached. Ultimately this stems from the Hague Convention (to which the UK and Spain are signaturies) which provides for the legalisation of documents in countries which are signaturies to the Coinvention for use in other member countries. This is administered by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London. My present understanding is that the fee is about to be increased to 27 pounds and you must pay for registered post return of the document. The process should only take a few weeks from the Power of Attorney being drafted in English and Spanish and sent to the UK.

More generally, Power of Attorney can be a useful tool to ease the process of purchase / sale etc. but it should be considered that it confers considerable responsibilties and indeed powers on those granted the given faculties and as such its importance cannot be underestimated.

If you require anymore assistance feel free to contact me.

Glyn D Gerard Moran

Partner

Costa Blanca Legal & Fiscal

info@legalandfiscal.com / www.legalandfiscal.com

Hi Gillespie

I hope I am not confusing the issue with regard to the cost.  I obtained the name of a Notary in my home town  from http://www.thenotariessociety.org.uk/, I contacted the Notary by telephone and advised him that I wanted to arrange Power of Attorney for my Lawyer in Spain to obtain NIE's  He explained the process how  it would be sent to the Foreign Office and it would take about a week to be returned. He confirmed the cost would be around £130

Regards

Bit confused here. I was in Spain recently to give my lawyer POA to buy and sell for us. We paid €80 for this and there was no further charge for the Hague Apostille unless of course it was included in the €80. But there was never any mention of the Apostille at any stage in the proceedings!

Alan

My understanding is that you would not need the Apostille if the POA was legalised in the country in which it is going to be used. I obtained one recently in the UK. My notary charged £60 and I paid £19 at the FCO for the Apostille. Was a 2 hour wait, but worth it. They give you a  ticket so you don't have to stay in the queue. I watched some sort of military parade in Whitehall. Felt quite the tourist. True, it is about to be raised to £27. How's that for inflation? Notaries charge all different prices. One less than two miles from my notary charges £120 for the same thing.

Hi,

I am buying a property with a friend who was not going to be able to go over to Spain with me to sign at completion. So on a visit over to Spain last year, our lawyer took her to a notary to get power of attourney for the solicitor to sign at completion. The cost for this was 73 euros. 

Joke is completion was supposed to be in January and I am still waiting!!!!

Julia

Alan,

When you sign a Power of Attorney document in Spain you would have had it witnessed before a Notary. The Hague Apostille I understand is used when the POA document is witnessed legally when you are outside of Spain!

Yep, thanks Mike. I understand how it works now.

Alan

Thanks to everyone.

I'm now fully up to speed on what I need to do.

My problem was that not only do I need to provide POA to my spanish lawyer asap but my husband is out of the country for a couple of weeks, so I can't get his signature in time to then have it legalised by getting the Hague Apostille and then get this sent to spain before our deadline.

We've sorted it now though, as soon as my husband gets back from China we are off for a day trip to Spain!

Kind regards

Gill

Long time: vacations and then... overwhelmed with all the delays in work due tio vacations. ALso I am 6 months pregnant now and sometimes energies just go.... away. Anyhow, I have found several minuts to interact with you today. Glad to be back!

Yes, the Hague Apostille is just necessary if you are granting power before a Notary out of Spain for business that will be done by someone in Spain on yourbehalf, the purpose is to supress many bourocratic and administrative managements that were necessary  to legalise official foreign documents in countries abroad. It is extremely useful even when it rises the sost of the Power but takes lots of work out.

REGARDING POWER in Spain: You can grant power to specific business and I always recommend my clients to just grant power of attorney for the concrete dealings the lawyer o third person needs to do. It has been a commun ( mal-practice) ti use general power of attorneys with huge innnecesary clauses. Of course, once you choose a lawyer, it must mean that you trust him as professional, but, better to give specific power.

I recently obtained POA in the UK for my Spanish Lawyer.  As Ambre did - I looked under notary in the phone book and found a local notary.  The cost was £80 for her services plus £20 for the Foreign Office and Hague Apostille endorsement.  It was posted to the Foreign office in London and returned to me in Cardiff within 4 days.  Excellent ! 

Could anyone tell me how much I should be paying to the lawyer (or in my case a Spanish estate agent that I know) to act as POA? I have been quoted 700 euros to sign for the house and the mortgage on completion. this is to include phonecalls etc but seems expensive to me.

daveandnicky@hotmail.com

Also, is it worth giving POA to anyone. We want to be in Spain to put in the furniture etc to our new house anyway and could sign then. Problem is though we are hoping to rent out the house out and as well as expecting a new baby near completion we are also moving to Malaysia in August. Any advice would be appreciated.

daveandnicky@hotmail.com