What is a representation or power of attorney?

If it is legal, it means that representation is necessary or mandatory because it is established by a rule with the rank of law; for example, legal entities cannot act on their own but need a person to take charge of it.

On the other hand, voluntary representation is one that is not legally determined, for example, one that is granted in favor of a spouse or family member to present a petition to a public body.

and has defined three types of powers:

• " General" power of attorney, so that the authorized person can act on behalf of the principal in any administrative action and 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 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.

Additionally, the representations must also indicate the capabilities, which can be:

• All (which includes Process, Consult and Receive notifications), or,
• The combination of partial capabilities (Process, Consult and Receive notifications), which can be:
  • Process
  • Consult
  • Receive notifications
  • Process and Consult
  • Process and Receive Notifications
  • View and receive notifications

Attention! Representations with partial capacities will not be interoperable with other power of attorney registers. Therefore, if you create a representation with any capacity other than "All" it will only be valid within the framework of the user organizations of Representa.

The possible states of a representation are:

• VALID >> Valid and current representation.
• PENDING VALIDATION >> Documentation has been provided that needs to be reviewed and validated in order to change the status to VALID or DENIED.
• PENDENT_ACCEPTACIO >> The principal or representative has made a representation without documentation to validate and the other party must explicitly accept it to change the status to VALID. Either party, however, can decide to cancel it, changing it to WAIVED or REVOKED (depending on who performs the action). When a Validation query is made, a representation in this status cannot be used to respond affirmatively. After 40 days in this status, if it has not been accepted or canceled (revocation or waiver), it automatically changes to canceled.
• PENDING SIGNATURE >> Once the service receives a request to register or modify a representation, signed evidence is generated. If this signature fails, this representation is placed in a pending signature state and retried until the signature is performed correctly.
• DENIED >> Once the documentation attached to the registration has been reviewed and representation has been denied.
• EXPIRED >> A representation that was previously VALID or PENDING VALIDATION, but is currently out of its validity period.
• RENEWED >> The representative renounces the representation.
• REVOKED >> The principal revokes the representation.
• CANCELLED >> Exceptional state in which for some reason a public employee invalidates a representation.

Currently, amendment management is not allowed within the tool, therefore, if a representation is denied, the request must be made again. We are evaluating implementing an amendment management mechanism that allows a denied representation to be used to generate another one, correcting what is wrong in a more agile way.

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 via a URL that changes depending on the organization and is:

https://representa.cat/representa/ciutada?codi= x x= codI INE10 without initial 0

Therefore, there is an instance for each entity registered with the service.

To any natural or legal person, providing their details (name or company name and NIF or identification number, at least).

Whatever is fixed in the creation of the empowerment and in any case, no more than 5 years, which is what is established by the Law.

The power comes into effect:

• once accepted, in cases that require subsequent acceptance by the representative.
• once validated, in cases that require subsequent validation by the administration.

You can download the proof of registration of a representation at any time since all are registered in Representa. For more information, you can consult What proofs can I download? in the article How can I register a representation electronically?

Although it is not a public register, all powers of attorney are registered so that Catalan public administrations can manage all actions with representatives.

You can carry out any procedure at any public administration for which you have explicitly authorized it.

The procedures that a citizen, professional or company can carry out online regarding powers of attorney are:

• Grant a power of attorney
• Request the registration of a previously existing power of attorney
• Consult the powers of attorney
• Cancel a power of attorney
• Accept as a representative, a power of attorney granted by another person

Representations cannot be registered in Representa so that the proxy can request the idCAT (certificate or mobile) in the name of the principal.

In accordance with regulatory regulations, obtaining electronic signature mechanisms must be done in person by the interested person; that is, it is a very personal act that involves going to a public administration.

The above is excepted when the interested party uses another digital certificate to request the certificate (digitally) or a third party brings the application form with the interested party's signature notarized.

As can be seen, these are two highly rated cases where there is reliable evidence of identity verification, which are not transferable to the powers of Representa.