The assistant: a support measure under Catalan law

Originally published in January 2020. Catalan law on support measures for people with disabilities was reformed in 2021, and assistance is now the main support measure. Please contact us for up-to-date advice on your situation.

What is assistance?

Assistance (assistència) is a legal measure provided for in the Civil Code of Catalonia (Article 226) that offers additional legal protection to people who may be vulnerable because of their physical or mental condition, without their being declared legally incapable.

What is its main purpose?

The main aim is to avoid having to remove the legal capacity of a person whose faculties are only partially or slightly reduced, by giving them the additional help they need. As a result, legal acts that require the assistant’s involvement may be annulled if the assisted person carries them out alone.

Annulment may be sought by the assisted person or by the assistant, as well as by the guardian (where there is one) and by the assisted person’s heirs, within four years of the guardianship being established or of the person’s death.

What does the assistant do?

The assistant looks after the assisted person’s personal wellbeing.

They take part, together with the assisted person, in the legal acts related to the assistance. They may also administer the assisted person’s assets.

Who can request assistance?

Vulnerable adults themselves. It cannot be requested by their relatives, by the court or by the Public Prosecutor.

Who can be an assistant?

The person chosen by the individual concerned, provided they meet the requirements of the Civil Code of Catalonia:

• There must be no conflict of interest. In particular, people who provide care, residential or similar services to the protected person under a contract cannot be appointed.
• They must be fit to take on the role.
• None of the grounds of disqualification may apply. These are the same as for acting as a guardian (Article 222-15 of the Civil Code of Catalonia):

a) Being deprived of or suspended from parental authority or custody by a final administrative or court decision, or having been so within the previous five years.

b) Having been removed from a guardianship for reasons attributable to them.

c) Serving a prison sentence.

d) Having been declared insolvent and not discharged, unless the guardianship does not include managing assets.

e) Having been convicted of any offence that gives good reason to believe they would not carry out the guardianship properly.

f) Behaving in a way that could harm the upbringing of a minor or the care of the person concerned.

g) Being in fact unable to carry out the role.

h) Being on bad terms with the protected person, or being or having been in litigation or in a conflict of interest with them.

i) Having no known means of support.

How is assistance requested?

It is requested through non-contentious court proceedings (jurisdicció voluntària), in which the judge and the Public Prosecutor take part. They may object to the person proposed as assistant, but they can never appoint a different one: the person concerned must choose someone else.

The application states the matters in which the assistant’s involvement will be required, which are those the person concerned requests. If their physical or mental condition later improves, the assisted person may ask for the measure to be changed, or even ended if they consider they have recovered their full faculties.