Section 6: Family habilitation

When a person is unable to look after his own interests due to a medically certified impairment of either his mental faculties or his physical faculties such as to prevent him from expressing his wishes, the guardianship judge may authorise one or more persons chosen from among his ascendants or descendants, brothers and sisters or, unless they are no longer living together, the spouse, the partner to whom the person…

Family habilitation may only be ordered by the judge in cases of necessity and when the interests of the person cannot be sufficiently provided for by applying the rules of the ordinary law of representation, those relating to the respective rights and duties of spouses and the rules of matrimonial property regimes, in particular those provided for in articles 217, 219, 1426 and 1429, or by the stipulations of the…

The application for the designation of an authorised person may be submitted to the judge by the person who needs to be protected, by one of the persons mentioned in Article 494-1 or by the public prosecutor at the request of one of them. The claim shall be brought, investigated and judged in accordance with the rules of the Code of Civil Procedure and in compliance with the provisions of…

The person in respect of whom authorisation is sought shall be heard or called in accordance with the procedures laid down in the first paragraph of Article 432. However, the judge may, by specially reasoned decision and on the advice of the doctor mentioned in article 431, decide that there is no need to proceed with his hearing if it is likely to harm his health or if the person…

The judge shall rule on the choice of the person to be empowered and the extent of the empowerment, ensuring that the proposed arrangement is consistent with the property and, where applicable, personal interests of the person concerned. If the family empowerment sought does not provide sufficient protection, the judge may order one of the judicial protection measures mentioned in sections 3 and 4 of this chapter.

Habilitation may relate to: – one or more of the acts that the guardian has the power to perform, alone or with authorisation, on the property of the person concerned; – one or more acts relating to the person to be protected. In this case, the empowerment is exercised in compliance with the provisions of articles 457-1 to 459-2 of the Civil Code. The empowered person may only carry out,…

The person authorised to represent the protected person may, unless the judge decides otherwise, carry out the acts mentioned in the first paragraph of Article 427.

The person in respect of whom habilitation has been granted retains the exercise of his rights other than those the exercise of which has been entrusted to the person empowered to represent him pursuant to this section. However, he may not, in the case of general habilitation to represent him, conclude a mandate for future protection during the period of habilitation.

If the person in respect of whom habilitation has been granted performs alone an act the performance of which was entrusted to the habilitated person, the act is void ipso jure without it being necessary to prove any prejudice. If he or she performs alone an act the performance of which required assistance from the habilitated person, the act may be annulled only if it is established that the protected…

The judge shall rule, at the request of any interested party or the public prosecutor, on any difficulties that may arise in the implementation of the system. Selected for this purpose under the conditions set out in the first paragraph of article 494-3, the judge may, at any time, modify the scope of the authorisation or terminate it, after hearing or summoning the person in respect of whom the authorisation…