01.The law and its entry into force
The “Ley 13/2026, de 3 de agosto, de modificación del Código civil de Cataluña en materia de apoyos al ejercicio de la capacidad jurídica de las personas” —Law 13/2026 of 3 August, amending the Catalan Civil Code with regard to support for the exercise of legal capacity— was published in the “Diario Oficial de la Generalitat de Cataluña” —the DOGC, Catalonia's official gazette— number 9722, of 4 August 2026. Under its ninth final provision, it will come into force six months after its publication, that is, on 4 February 2027.
Its single article rewrites the whole of Title II of Book Two, which is renamed “Institutions for the protection of and support for the person”. Chapter I is reserved for minors, with guardianship, de facto guardianship and protection in cases of abandonment. Chapter II, which is entirely new, regulates support for the exercise of legal capacity by adults. Chapter III regulates court-appointed defence, common to minors and adults, and Chapter IV, the protection of assets, with the protected estate and the special administration of property received by gift or inheritance. The law repeals the “Decreto ley 19/2021, de 31 de agosto” —Decree-Law 19/2021 of 31 August—, and its final provisions adapt numerous provisions of the other books of the Code, including several on the law of succession.
02.Background
The starting point is Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 13 December 2006, which recognises that such persons enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life. In Spanish state law, the “Ley 8/2021, de 2 de junio” —Law 8/2021 of 2 June— abolished the judicial declaration of incapacity and replaced the guardianship of adults with a system of support measures. Article 250 of the “Código Civil”, the Spanish Civil Code, lists those measures, namely voluntary measures, de facto guardianship, curatorship and the court-appointed defender, and its Article 269 only allows the curator to assume representation “in exceptional cases where it is essential owing to the circumstances of the person with disabilities” and for specific acts that the court decision must specify.
Catalonia adapted its law through Decree-Law 19/2021 of 31 August, in force since 3 September 2021. As the preamble to the new law recalls, that decree-law entailed “the repeal of the guardianship and curatorship of adults and of extended and restored parental authority” and made assistance the central support measure, which Book Two had already regulated since 2010 and which since then may be established by the courts or, as a novelty, by public deed. It was a minimum regulation, and its second final provision instructed the Government to submit a bill so as to provide a comprehensive regulation. That law is Law 13/2026.
Its scope should therefore be made clear. Law 13/2026 does not abolish the guardianship or curatorship of adults, which have been impossible to establish in Catalonia since 2021. What it does is build the complete system of support that the decree-law merely outlined, abolish the residual curatorship of emancipated minors, which is channelled into court-appointed defence, and abandon, for adults, the institution of de facto guardianship, which it replaces with non-formalised support. It does, however, affect guardianships and curatorships established before 2021 that have not yet been reviewed, as we shall see when dealing with the transitional regime.
03.The principles of the new regime
Article 222-1 sets out the principle on which the whole chapter is based:
“1. Every person has the right to access support that is individualised and adapted to their situation in order to take decisions with legal effects on equal terms. 2. The fact of having support in decision-making does not entail any limitation of the person's legal capacity.”
The law ranks the responses from lesser to greater intensity. First, universal accessibility measures; if they are not enough, reasonable accommodations; and only if these are not sufficient either, support (Article 222-2). Support may consist of helping to express an already formed will, helping to take the decision or intervening in the “shaping of the will”, which Article 222-4.4 defines as giving consent to the act where this is required as a condition of its effectiveness or acting in the name or on behalf of the person if the support includes representation.
In our view, this is a distinctive feature of the Catalan law as compared with the state law. The Spanish Civil Code presents representation as something exceptional within curatorship. Law 13/2026 regulates representation as one more form of assistance, albeit subsidiary to the others according to its preamble, and places the exceptional character, in the judicial route, on the permanent limitation of the person's own powers. It is a more realistic option in practice and, properly applied, no less respectful of autonomy.
The person's will determines the establishment, content, exercise and scope of the support, subject to two limits laid down in Article 222-6.1. That it is a will free from undue influence or situations of abuse, and that it does not result from a circumstance that limits full awareness of their situation and needs with serious risk to the person or to third parties, or from a condition that leads them to deny that situation and affects their discernment. Only in those cases, or if it is impossible to ascertain the person's will, and provided that a decision with legal effects concerning the person needs to be taken, must the court establish, with reasons, the necessary support, even without their consent (Article 222-6.2).
04.Non-formalised support
The help that families provide without any formal title, which until now fell within de facto guardianship, is now called non-formalised support. Article 222-11 defines it as follows:
“Non-formalised support is that in which a person, without having formalised support, helps, advises and carries out procedural steps provided that these do not entail a significant change in the person's way of life and are not of special economic significance. Support must be formalised whenever it involves carrying out acts or procedures with financial institutions, judicial authorities, registries and notaries.”
The second sentence is, in our view, the one with the greatest practical impact in the whole law. Under the state regime, Article 264 of the Spanish Civil Code allows the de facto guardian to apply for financial benefits on behalf of the person and to carry out, without court authorisation, acts concerning property of little economic significance that has no special personal or family significance. The Catalan law, by contrast, makes no distinction by amount when the act is carried out before a financial institution. From 4 February 2027, a son who, without being a joint holder of the account or holding an authorisation or power of attorney from his mother, manages her accounts at the bank, even if only for routine payments, will need formalised support, whether a preventive power of attorney or assistance. The law also conceives of this support as provisional, because it is provided “until the formalised support established by law is put in place” (Article 222-5.3).
We believe, however, that the rule must be read in conjunction with Article 222-4.3, which includes among support activities informing the person, helping them to understand legal acts and their consequences and enabling them to reach agreements with third parties. What requires formalisation is for the person providing support to carry out the act or procedure before the institution, not to help the person so that it is they who act. The court may at any time require a person providing non-formalised support to report and render accounts (Article 222-12.4), and a person who provides it on an ongoing basis has standing to apply for assistance to be established by the court (Article 222-36.2).
05.Preventive mandates and powers of attorney
Preventive support measures are those that a person puts in place in anticipation of needing them. They may take the form of a contract of mandate or a power of attorney (Article 222-15), always in a public deed, and with immediate or deferred effect (Article 222-18). In those with deferred effect, the grantor may provide for how the need for support is to be proved, including by means of a notarial record (“acta notarial”) with an expert report. In the absence of such provision, the attorney may set the start of their mandate on their own responsibility, and must inform the supervisors without delay. The granting of any preventive support measure, its amendments and its termination must be registered in the Civil Registry and in the Registry of Non-Testamentary Guardianship Appointments and Legal Capacity Support Measures, and the activation of those with deferred effect must also be recorded there (Article 222-26.2).
The rule that will most affect the drafting of powers of attorney is that of Article 222-19.4:
“In preventive powers of attorney, self-dealing and the conferral of powers of disposal free of charge, or to grant personal or in rem security, are excluded, unless it is for specific acts which must be stated in the power of attorney.”
A general power of attorney, however broad, will not permit the making of gifts or the giving of guarantees. If the principal wishes their attorney to be able, for example, to make gifts to the grandchildren or to guarantee a child's mortgage loan, they must say so expressly. The same applies to self-dealing, so that a son holding a power of attorney will not be able to buy a property from his father or contract with himself on his father's behalf without express provision. And the exclusion of security makes no distinction between one's own debt and that of another, so that, in our view, it also extends to a mortgage over the principal's home to finance their own expenses, which in addition always requires the express power to mortgage (Article 569-29.3).
The law requires “specific acts” without defining them. It may be argued that a category of acts sufficiently defined in terms of its subject matter, recipient and amount is enough, because the purpose of the rule is to prevent abuse and not to prevent planning. But the systematic argument points the other way, because when Book Two itself allows categories it says so expressly, as in Articles 221-3.2 and 211-12.2, which refer to “several acts of the same nature”. Until there is judicial guidance, the prudent course is to identify each act as precisely as possible.
Three mandatory safeguards are added to this. The first is supervision, which Article 222-54.2 imposes in preventive mandates and powers of attorney unless the attorney is the spouse or stable-union partner, a descendant or an ascendant. The second is the schedule of assets, claims, debts and charges that must be annexed to the deed or drawn up before starting to manage the estate, from which an exemption is possible only where the attorney is the sole first-degree descendant (Article 222-52.2 and 3). The third is the annual rendering of accounts, or for periods of up to three years if so established, in any formalised support measure with powers of asset management (Article 222-58). It is also advisable to provide for what happens if the attorney is the spouse or partner, because the support ends upon separation, divorce or the breakdown of the stable union unless the principal's contrary wish is recorded (Article 222-25.1.e).
The law leaves two questions to be resolved here. The first, the relationship between the annual rendering of accounts and their delivery. Article 222-58 imposes the annual rendering of accounts, but Article 222-60.1 provides that in preventive support measures and notarial assistance, unless otherwise provided, the information and the accounts are given to the principal or assisted person and to the supervisors “at their own request”. In our view, the obligation to keep and close the accounts for each period always exists, because Article 222-61.1 sets their rendering within the six months following the close, and their delivery depends on their being requested, unless the instrument provides otherwise. The supervisors must notify the court of any unjustified delay or irregularity that has not been remedied in time. The second, how that schedule of assets fits with the formal inventory that Article 222-52.1 requires, under the rules on guardianship, in any support measure with powers of representation of general scope in relation to assets. In our view, paragraph 2 is the special rule for preventive support measures and notarial assistance, but a general power of attorney also falls within paragraph 1, and the uncertainty weighs on whoever accepts it.
06.Assistance and its three forms
Assistance is the formalised support provided to an adult to exercise their legal capacity, in the personal sphere, in the financial sphere or in both, for a specific matter or on an ongoing basis (Article 222-27). It may be established by notarial agreement or by the court, and the judicial route is available only if the existing preventive support or notarial assistance is insufficient or does not work properly (Article 222-28.2).
Article 222-29 distinguishes three forms. Accompaniment consists of advising, and in notarial assistance it is the form presumed if the form has not been specified (Article 222-33.4). Cooperation requires the assistant's consent for acts to be effective in the areas expressly specified. Representation is regulated as follows:
“3. Assistance by way of representation empowers the assistant to act in the name or on behalf of the assisted person. Assistance by way of representation does not limit the assisted person's powers to act on their own, unless the contrary has been expressly established in the notarial agreement or in the court decision establishing it. Judicial assistance by way of representation that includes permanent limitations on the assisted person's powers to act is exceptional, and may only refer to specified types of acts or property.”
The difference from the current regime is significant. Article 226-4.3, as worded by Decree-Law 19/2021, only allows the court, in exceptional cases, to determine “the specific acts” in which the assistant may represent. The new law regulates representation as one of the three forms of assistance, compatible with the person continuing to act on their own, although the preamble describes it as subsidiary to the other two. What Article 222-29.3 declares exceptional is judicial assistance by way of representation that permanently limits the person's powers, and that limitation can never be general, because it may only refer to specified types of acts or property. In notarial assistance by way of representation, the deed must state whether it entails a self-limitation of the person's powers and whether the assistant needs authorisation for certain acts (Article 222-33.6). It is a singular institution, because the limitation comes from the person themselves, and that is why the law surrounds it with guarantees.
The main one is the preliminary notarial record (“acta previa”), mandatory in all notarial assistance except accompaniment (Article 222-32). In it, the notary certifies that the assistance reflects the will, preferences and wishes of the person and that the person has sufficient understanding of its scope and consequences. Any multidisciplinary reports deemed necessary may be attached to it and, if the assistance is by way of representation, an inventory of assets must be attached, unless it is limited to identified assets. The deed is executed immediately after the record is closed, before the same notary, and must appoint the supervisors, because supervision is mandatory in notarial assistance by way of cooperation and of representation, unless the assistant is the spouse or partner, a descendant or an ascendant (Articles 222-32.4, 222-33.3 and 222-54.2). The record also serves a privacy function, because the deed of assistance that will circulate in legal dealings need not refer to the personal condition that gave rise to it. Any adult may, moreover, designate in a public deed, without a preliminary record, the person who should be appointed in preference if assistance is one day established by the court (Article 222-35).
It follows that notarial assistance, like the preventive power of attorney, is granted by the person themselves and requires that they understand what they are doing. When they can no longer understand it, the route is the judicial one. In that route, the application must include an assistance plan, with the persons proposed, the scope and functions of the assistance, the arrangements for communication with the assisted person, the proposals to enhance their autonomy, the safeguards and, where applicable, remuneration (Article 222-37). Assistance may also be applied for in respect of unemancipated minors over the age of seventeen if it is shown that they will need support on reaching the age of majority, and it takes effect from that moment (Article 222-36.1).
07.Common safeguards
Section five brings together the guarantees, many of them those that traditionally accompanied guardianship offices. Support may be provided only by natural persons who are not subject to any ground of unfitness and by non-profit legal persons whose purpose this is, and the latter may not do so if they provide the person with care, residential, employment or similar services under a contract, unless the court exceptionally authorises it in view of the person's needs (Article 222-48). The rule differs from that of Article 250 of the Spanish Civil Code, which admits no exceptions but extends to any person, natural or legal, providing such services.
The person providing support must act with loyalty and with the diligence of a reasonable person, and is liable for damage caused by breach of those duties, through an action subject to a limitation period of three years from the final rendering of accounts (Article 222-8). If the support covers the personal sphere, the assistant must also report relevant changes in the health, residence and personal and family situation of the assisted person, with the same frequency as the accounts (Article 222-59).
Judicial support measures are reviewed by the court of its own motion every three years, but if no substantial changes are foreseeable the court may simply order a review when new circumstances arise (Article 222-47.1), without the six-year maximum currently laid down by Article 226-2.6 and, in state law, by Article 268 of the Spanish Civil Code. Article 222-58, which deals with accounts, nevertheless retains a reference to a longer review period “which must not exceed six years”, which raises the question of whether that limit still applies. Notarial assistance is reviewed at the intervals set in the deed, which may not exceed three years, by means of an appearance before a notary of the assisted person, the assistant and the supervisors (Article 222-47.3).
There is one change worth highlighting. Under Decree-Law 19/2021, Article 226-6 applies the rules on guardianship to assistance insofar as they are not inconsistent with its own regime, which makes it possible to regard as applicable, among others, the requirement of court authorisation for acts of greater importance. Under Law 13/2026, that authorisation will be necessary only if so provided by the person when establishing the support or by the court, which must specify the acts from among those in Article 221-45.1 (Article 222-53.1). In voluntary support measures, the person may confer that power of authorisation on the supervisors. Acts carried out without the necessary authorisation are voidable within four years of their execution.
08.The validity of acts
Article 222-62.1 brings certainty to legal dealings:
“1. Legal acts carried out with the intervention of a formalised support measure within the scope of its functions cannot be annulled solely on the grounds of the personal condition that gave rise to the establishment of the support.”
An act entered into without the assistant's consent in assistance by way of cooperation, or in breach of the limitations of a representative support measure, may be challenged by the assistant, by the assisted person themselves and by their successors, although the assistant may also ratify acts carried out without their involvement (Article 222-29.2). An act entered into with a conflict of interest, abuse or undue influence on the part of the person providing support may be challenged only if the other party knew or ought to have known of those circumstances. In both cases the time limit is four years from the execution of the act (Article 222-62). For notaries, financial institutions and counterparties, the consequence is clear. Checking the existence and scope of the formalised support, and its registration, will be the best protection against a subsequent challenge. The law adds a protection for the person themselves, because the limitation period for their claims is suspended while they cannot act on their own and do not have the support they need, and also between them and the person providing them with support, for as long as that support continues (Article 121-16, letters b and g).
09.Effects on succession
The reform also extends to the law of succession. To make a will, natural capacity at the time of execution is sufficient (Article 421-4), and the notary may require the involvement of two medical practitioners to assess it (Article 421-9). By contrast, to enter into a succession agreement one must be able to act on one's own without the need for support, unless the person is merely a beneficiary and no burden is imposed on them (Article 431-4). Persons with formalised support accept and disclaim the inheritance with the involvement, where appropriate, of their support providers (Article 461-9.1), enjoy the benefit of inventory as of right (Article 461-16) and, if they are called upon to accept or disclaim and do not reply, are deemed to accept with the benefit of inventory (Article 461-12.4).
The law also creates a disqualification from inheriting. A person who has exercised a representative formalised support measure may not inherit under dispositions made by the supported person while the support is in force, unless they are an ascendant, descendant, spouse or stable-union partner, or sibling, or the final rendering of accounts is approved within the time limit (Article 412-5.1.e). And those who, under a contract, have provided the deceased with care or residential services, including the carers who depend on them, may only benefit under an open notarial will or a succession agreement (Article 412-5.2).
Exemplary substitution (“sustitución ejemplar”) is adapted to the new system. The new Article 425-10 only allows it to be ordered by the ascendants of a forced heir (“legitimario”) “if that person has a support measure with representative functions in place”. It further requires that the ascendant leave them their forced share (“legítima”) and that the substituted person has not executed and does not subsequently execute any succession agreement or act of last will, and Article 425-13 renders the substitution ineffective when the representative formalised support ceases.
10.The transitional regime
The second transitional provision is the one that will affect most people immediately. Guardianships, curatorships and extended or restored parental authority established before Decree-Law 19/2021 and not yet reviewed remain in place on the terms set by the court, but must be exercised in accordance with the principles governing support. They may be reviewed at the request of the person or of the office-holder at any time, and the review must be carried out within one year of the application. If no one requests it, the court must carry it out, of its own motion or at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, within three years of the law's entry into force, that is, by 4 February 2030 at the latest. In the same proceedings, the person may apply for authorisation to replace the court-ordered measure with notarial assistance, and the measure remains in force until, once the deed has been executed, the notary informs the court and the court sets it aside. Persons declared prodigal and their curators may at any time apply for the curatorship to be terminated. The first transitional provision lays down an equivalent regime for assistance established before 2021.
Under the fourth transitional provision, preventive powers of attorney granted before 4 February 2027 remain subject, as regards their effects and exercise, to the previous rules, although the court, of its own motion or at the request of a person with standing, and the principal may require periodic rendering of accounts or other control measures. The rule looks to the date of execution, so that a power of attorney with deferred effect granted before that date and activated afterwards will also follow the previous regime. The third transitional provision preserves the effectiveness of appointments made by the person themselves in the event of a judicial modification of capacity, which will apply if the court is asked to appoint someone to assist them.
The fifth transitional provision deserves particular attention. Exemplary substitutions made before the law's entry into force only retain their validity and effectiveness if they meet the formal and substantive requirements of Articles 425-10 to 425-13 as newly worded. Its combination with the second transitional provision has a consequence that should not go unnoticed. In our view, if the review of a pre-2021 guardianship over a child who is a forced heir results in assistance without representative functions, the exemplary substitution that the parents may have ordered will cease to have effect.
11.The questions the law leaves open
To those already identified, namely the scope of the formalisation required for acts with financial institutions, the degree of specificity of gratuitous and security acts, the delivery of the accounts, the inventory in general powers of attorney and whether the six-year limit for reviewing judicial support measures still applies, three more must be added.
The first is the regime applicable to assistance established between 3 September 2021 and 4 February 2027. The first transitional provision covers only assistance predating the Decree-Law and the second, guardianships, curatorships and extended or restored parental authority. In our view, the new law will apply directly to such assistance from its entry into force, which raises the questions of whether notarial assistance by way of cooperation or representation will need supervisors, whether it will have to be reviewed before a notary within a maximum of three years and what form applies to assistance established without specifying it.
The second is whether a preventive power of attorney granted by the forced heir themselves is a support measure with representative functions for the purposes of exemplary substitution. Article 222-17 defines the preventive power of attorney as a support measure empowering the attorney to act in the principal's name, and Article 222-5.2 classifies it as formalised support, so the literal answer is yes. The opposite may be argued on the basis that exemplary substitution protects those who cannot make a will, and the existence of a power of attorney does not prove that. In our view, the question will end up in the courts, and anyone ordering an exemplary substitution today should bear it in mind.
The third is territorial application. Article 9.6 of the Spanish Civil Code subjects support measures to the law of the person's habitual residence, and Article 16.1 extends the rules of private international law to conflicts between Spain's civil-law systems with the particularity that the personal law is that of the “vecindad civil”, regional civil-law status. In our view, that particularity does not displace habitual residence, because Article 9.6 does not refer to the personal law, and Law 13/2026 will apply to persons habitually resident in Catalonia, regardless of their regional civil-law status. That same Article 16.1 is, however, the basis for the opposing view. And Article 9.6, in providing for a change of residence to another State, looks to the law of the new residence, so that, in our view, a power of attorney granted in Catalonia by someone who later moves to another autonomous community will come to be governed by a different law, with different rules, for example, on gifts and security.
12.What to do before 4 February 2027
For those who wish to plan their own future, the preventive power of attorney remains the most effective instrument. Anyone who grants one before 4 February 2027 will be subject, as regards its effects and exercise, to the previous regime, which does not impose the supervision or annual rendering of accounts required by the new law, although the court may require them. Anyone who grants one afterwards will have to provide expressly for the gratuitous, security and self-dealing acts they wish to permit and, if the attorney is not one of the family members the law exempts, appoint a supervisor. In both cases it is advisable to include clear instructions, substitutes and control measures, and to consider an advance designation of an assistant.
For families who currently help an elderly person without any formal title, the reform calls for action. If that help includes banking transactions, registry or notarial procedures or involvement in court proceedings, it should be formalised as soon as possible, by means of a preventive power of attorney or notarial assistance if the person can understand their scope and grant them, or by means of judicial assistance if they can no longer do so.
For those exercising a guardianship or curatorship established before 2021, it is advisable to request a review, which makes it possible to design support tailored to the person. From 4 February 2027 it will also make it possible, if the person so wishes and the court authorises it, to replace the court-ordered measure with notarial assistance. If the parents have ordered an exemplary substitution, how the outcome of the review will affect its effectiveness should be assessed beforehand.
And for those who have ordered an exemplary substitution in their will, in light of the fifth transitional provision it is advisable to review the will. The substitution may cease to be effective if the substituted person never comes to have a representative support measure in place, and alternatives such as fideicommissary substitution or the special administration of assets under Chapter IV should be considered with the testator.
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