What an Israeli Continuing Power of Attorney Does, and Why Families Abroad Need One

By: Adv. Eli Shimony

Short answer: An Israeli continuing power of attorney (yipui koach mitmashech, UK – Lasting Power of Attorney, US -Durable Power of Attorney) is a document in which an adult who understands what they are signing appoints one or more trusted people to make decisions about their property, personal life and medical care if they later lose the ability to decide for themselves. It is signed before a lawyer who has completed the required training, deposited with Israel’s Administrator General, and comes into effect only under conditions the person set. Without one, an Israeli Family Court usually has to appoint a guardian, a slower process in which a judge decides who is in charge.

Picture a phone call from Haifa. Your mother has had a stroke. She is stable, but she cannot follow a conversation, and nobody knows if she will recover.

Within a week the practical questions arrive. Her bank will not accept instructions from you, even though you have helped with her online banking for years. The hospital wants to know who can consent to rehabilitation. The assisted living facility she once toured asks who will sign the contract. You are in New Jersey. Your brother is in Melbourne. Neither of you has any legal authority to do anything.

That is the situation an Israeli continuing power of attorney is designed to prevent, and it takes surprisingly little to set one up.

The problem it solves

Until 2016, when an adult in Israel lost the capacity to manage their affairs, the practical answer was almost always guardianship (apotropsut). A relative applied to the Family Court, a social worker usually prepared a report, and the court appointed someone. Amendment 18 to the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law 1962 added a new chapter that lets people plan instead: choose now, while capable, who will act for them and how.

An ordinary power of attorney does not do this job. The kind you sign to buy an apartment or let a relative handle a bank account works only while you are competent. Section 32J of the Law says that once the principal can no longer understand the matter, an attorney may act for them only under a continuing power of attorney that has been deposited with the Administrator General (Apotropus Klali) and has come into effect. Your old power of attorney stops working on the day you need it most.

How it works, in plain terms

There are two roles. The principal (memaneh) is the person making the document. The attorney-in-fact (meyupe koach) is the person who will act for them. Under Section 32B, any adult who understands the meaning, purpose and consequences of the document can make one.

After signing, the document is deposited with the Administrator General at the Ministry of Justice. Then it waits. It can sit there for twenty years doing nothing at all, and come to life precisely when it is needed.

What you can decide in advance

Property matters. Bank accounts, paying bills, renting out an apartment, dealing with the Israel Tax Authority and National Insurance (Bituach Leumi), pension and provident fund savings.

Personal matters. Where you will live, whether at home with a caregiver, in assisted living or in a nursing facility. Who cares for you. How your social rights are claimed. How your ties with family and community are kept.

Medical matters. Consenting to treatment, choosing doctors, receiving medical information. Under Section 32M(c), appointing someone for all personal matters includes medical matters unless you exclude them. You can also make a medical-only document, which under Section 32O may be signed before a doctor, social worker, psychologist or registered nurse, not only a lawyer.

You can give everything to one person or divide it. A daughter who is good with money for property, a son who lives nearby for personal and medical decisions. You can appoint several attorneys to act together and name a substitute in case the first cannot serve.

Advance directives: the part most people skip

Inside the document you can write advance directives: what you want to happen, in your own words. The ones I hear most sound like this:

“As long as it is possible, I want to stay in my own home with a caregiver.”

Do not sell the apartment in Kiryat Bialik while my granddaughter is living there.

Keep up my monthly donation to the synagogue.

“No decision about where I live without consulting my sister.”

These carry real weight. Section 32I(b) sets the order: the attorney-in-fact follows your advance directives first. Where there are none, they follow your current wishes if these can be established. Failing that, they follow what you wanted when you were still able to express it, your values and your way of life. Only when none of that can be known do they act on their own view of your best interests.

In other words, what you wrote wins. Even over what your children think is best.

In Practice: That monthly synagogue donation needs care. Under Section 32F(c) of the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law 1962, an attorney-in-fact may make donations, gifts or loans only to recipients named in the document, in amounts it sets, up to NIS 100,000 cumulatively for each type (customary gifts, such as a bar mitzvah present for a grandchild, are excluded). Above that, prior approval is needed through an application to the Administrator General under Section 74A. If you want family members to keep receiving monthly support, write it in on the day you sign, because once capacity is lost it cannot be added.

Why such a simple step creates so much certainty

The alternative is usually guardianship. Guardianship protects many vulnerable people and is sometimes the right tool. But the differences are large.

Who chooses the decision-maker

Continuing power of attorney: You, in advance.

Court-appointed guardian: The Family Court.

When it is decided

Continuing power of attorney: While you are capable.

Court-appointed guardian: After capacity is already lost.

Process

Continuing power of attorney: A declaration to the Administrator General.

Court-appointed guardian: A court application, usually with a social worker’s report, taking months

What guides decisions.

Continuing power of attorney: Your advance directives.

Court-appointed guardian: The guardian’s judgment under court supervision.

Privacy

Continuing power of attorney: Handled within the family.

Court-appointed guardian: A court proceeding examining your condition and assets.

Effect on legal capacity

Continuing power of attorney: Under Section 32T, coming into effect does not in itself remove it.

Court-appointed guardian: A deeper intervention in personal autonomy.

There is also a difference no side-by-side comparison captures: family peace. Where there is no document, every decision is open to argument. One child wants to sell the apartment to pay for care, another wants to rent it out, a third thinks Mom should move in with him. When a continuing power of attorney with clear directives exists, everyone knows who decides and on what basis. It does not end every disagreement, but it takes most of the heat out of it.

The law points in the same direction. Section 32H requires the attorney-in-fact to protect the principal’s dignity, restrict their freedom as little as possible and encourage them to make their own decisions wherever they still can. And under Section 33A, a court will generally not appoint a guardian for an adult in matters already covered by a deposited continuing power of attorney, and must first consider less restrictive alternatives.

Safeguards: what an attorney-in-fact cannot do

People sometimes worry about handing over this much authority. The law builds in several layers of protection.

Never allowed. Under Section 32F(b), an attorney-in-fact cannot change the principal’s religion, vote on their behalf, consent to a child’s adoption, make a will for them, or act for them under the Dying Patient Law 2005, which has its own separate mechanism.

Only with explicit authorization. Gifts, donations and loans, transactions worth NIS 100,000 to NIS 500,000, most actions in pension products, and consent to psychiatric examination, treatment or hospitalization.

Only with prior approval, even when authorized. Under Section 32F(d): selling or mortgaging an apartment, any real estate transaction (except a lease of up to five years not covered by the Tenant Protection Law), renouncing an inheritance, giving a guarantee, and any transaction above NIS 500,000.

Conflicts of interest. Transactions between the principal and the attorney-in-fact, their spouse or relatives are subject to the approval rules that apply to guardians (Section 32F(g)), with narrow exceptions such as the routine running of a shared household.

In Practice: Under Section 74A, an application to approve a Section 32F(d) transaction, for example selling a NIS 1.8 million apartment to fund assisted living, is filed with the Administrator General, who may approve it or refer it to the Family Court. The application must state the principal’s position, after the attorney-in-fact has tried to establish it. If the principal objects, or the request conflicts with advance directives they deposited, the Administrator General will not decide it and must refer it to the court. So if you already expect that your home may one day be sold to pay for care, say so in your directives. It does not replace approval, but it answers the first question that will be asked.

Under Section 32P, every continuing power of attorney also names an “informed person” who receives the attorney’s reports, or you can direct reports to the Administrator General, which also runs a dedicated unit for complaints about attorneys-in-fact.

How it comes into effect

The document takes effect when the principal can no longer understand the matter it covers, and the attorney-in-fact files a declaration with the Administrator General that the conditions are met (Section 32S(a)). The Administrator General confirms and notifies the principal and the informed person.

How is that loss of understanding established? You decide. Section 32S(c) lets you choose an expert opinion or another method, as long as it is not the attorney-in-fact’s decision alone. If you say nothing, an expert opinion is required. Before notifying the Administrator General, the attorney-in-fact must inform the principal and anyone the document names.

Two options worth knowing:

For property matters, the document can take effect immediately, while you are still capable (Section 32S(b)). Useful if managing accounts is already becoming difficult and you want a child to help in an orderly way.

You can state that the document stays in force even if you try to revoke it after losing capacity (Section 32W(d)). This is a serious choice, and it helps in illnesses where a person may turn against exactly the person they chose to trust.

When the family lives abroad

Families are spread out now. A parent in Israel, children in London, New York and Melbourne. Two situations come up constantly.

Your parent lives in Israel and you live abroad. Your parent signs in Israel, in person, before a trained Israeli lawyer. You can be the attorney-in-fact, since there is no requirement to live in Israel, and under a 2022 Administrator General directive your consent to serve can be witnessed by video (confirm it is still in force). Because some tasks need someone on the ground, consider a substitute or second attorney who lives in Israel.

You live abroad and have assets or plans in Israel. You can make an Israeli continuing power of attorney too, but it requires a face-to-face meeting with an authorized Israeli lawyer, either during a visit or by having the lawyer travel to you. Section 77(b) also applies the law of your country of residence to the document’s validity and scope, which usually means coordinating with a lawyer there. Our guide to signing an Israeli continuing power of attorney from abroad covers this step by step.

Common Mistake: Appointing a single attorney-in-fact with no substitute. Under Section 32V, the document expires if the attorney-in-fact dies, gives notice that they no longer wish to serve, or, where the attorney is the principal’s spouse, the marriage ends (unless the document says otherwise). I see this with older couples who appointed only each other: one dies, the other has meanwhile lost the capacity to sign a new document, and the family is back at the start with a Family Court guardianship application that takes months. One line on the form naming a substitute would have prevented it.

Practical checklist

Talk to the people you are considering before you appoint them.

Choose an attorney-in-fact, a substitute and an informed person.

Decide which matters to cover: property, personal, medical, or all three.

Write advance directives about the things that matter most to you, especially housing and any support you give family.

Spell out any gifts, donations or pension actions you want to allow.

Decide how your loss of capacity should be determined.

Sign before a trained Israeli lawyer, and make sure the document is deposited with the Administrator General.

Review it when your family or health situation changes; the Administrator General will also contact you every three years until it takes effect.

Frequently asked questions

At what age should you make a continuing power of attorney?

Any adult who understands the document can make one. Most people come after 60 or after a medical scare in the family, but there is no reason to wait. Accidents and sudden illness do not check your age, and the document does nothing until it is actually needed.

Do you have to be ill to make one?

The opposite. You have to be capable. Someone with an early diagnosis of cognitive decline can still sign as long as they understand the document, but the lawyer may require an expert opinion first. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that it can no longer be made.

Can I change or cancel it later?

Yes. A capable principal can revoke it by written notice to the attorney-in-fact and should also notify the Administrator General (Section 32W). You can also sign a new document, and the most recently deposited one on the same matter prevails.

How is this different from a will?

A will works after death; a continuing power of attorney works during life. An attorney-in-fact cannot make a will for you, and the document ends when you die. There is one narrow exception: under Section 32X(b), for up to 90 days a property attorney may pay ongoing bills and funeral costs and keep managing a rented property until someone else is authorized. You should have both documents, and they should be consistent.

Does the attorney-in-fact get paid?

Only if the document says so, and in the amount it sets (Section 32L). Family members usually serve unpaid, while professionals usually charge a fee. Either way, the attorney-in-fact can recover reasonable expenses incurred in the role.

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

A continuing power of attorney takes one or two meetings and a few decisions you make while you are still able to make them. We explain what you can provide for, help you draft advance directives that fit your family, and handle the deposit with the Administrator General, whether you or your parent live in Israel or abroad.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.