How a French Family Activated an Israeli Continuing Power of Attorney

Result: Israeli continuing power of attorney brought into force from France, restoring family control of NIS 2.48M in Israeli assets without a guardianship application · Timeline: 5 months from the bank's refusal to confirmed activation · Challenge: French protective mandate has no standing in Israel · Authority: Administrator General at the Ministry of Justice · Financial Impact: NIS 2.48M

Background

A widow in her eighties held both French and Israeli citizenship and had lived in Lyon since the 1970s. Her Israeli assets were modest but not trivial: a two-bedroom apartment in Netanya, let to a long-term tenant, and a Bank Leumi account holding the rent and a small securities position, together worth about NIS 2.48M. In 2023, during a three-week visit to family in Israel, she signed an Israeli continuing power of attorney naming her daughter in Paris as attorney-in-fact for property matters, with her son in Marseille as an informed person. She also held a French mandat de protection future, signed years earlier.

By early 2026 vascular dementia had progressed to the point where she could no longer manage money. The French mandate was activated in France without difficulty. Her daughter then wrote to Bank Leumi in Netanya, attached the French court paperwork and an apostille, and asked to be recognised on the account. The bank declined. Rent was accumulating in an account nobody could touch, the arnona and vaad bayit bills were falling into arrears, and the tenant had begun asking who he was actually dealing with.

The Challenge

The refusal was correct, and it caught the family completely off guard. Two separate problems were sitting underneath it.

The first is a treaty gap. France has been a contracting party to the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults since 1 January 2009, and within that circle a French protective mandate travels well. Israel has never joined the convention. There is no reciprocal recognition mechanism, no central authority to route the request through, and no Israeli register in which a French mandate can be recorded. An Israeli bank looking at an apostilled French judgment sees a document it cannot verify against anything, presented on behalf of a customer the bank's own file still shows as fully capable. Compliance officers refuse in that situation as a matter of course, and they are not being obstructive when they do.

The second problem was that the daughter had the answer in her hands and did not know it. The instrument her mother signed in Netanya in 2023 was a continuing power of attorney under the chapter added to the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law 1962 by Amendment 18, in force since 2017. It had been drawn up and signed before an attorney who had completed the required training, and it had been deposited with the Administrator General, a precondition for it ever taking effect. What the family had never been told, or had forgotten in the intervening years, is that deposit alone does nothing. The document sits dormant until somebody formally brings it into force, and until that happens no Israeli bank will look at it either.

In Practice: A continuing power of attorney under the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law 1962 is valid only if the principal signed it before an attorney who completed the training prescribed for the purpose, in person save under temporary emergency arrangements, and it can take effect only once it has been deposited with the Administrator General (Apotropus Klali) at the Ministry of Justice. Bringing it into force is a separate step: after informing the principal and the people named in the document, the attorney-in-fact files a declaration of entry into force supported by a medical opinion that the principal can no longer understand the matter, and the Administrator General issues a written confirmation or refusal and notifies both the principal and any named informed persons. Processing times vary, and a query from the Administrator General extends them. The alternative, a Family Court guardianship application, costs NIS 8,000 to 20,000 and runs 3 to 9 months with continuing court supervision afterwards.

What We Did

The work divided into three pieces, and only one of them was legal in any interesting sense. The other two were access problems, which is often how these matters actually go.

Retrieving the instrument. The deposited copy is held by the Administrator General, but the family had no idea which certified attorney had handled the 2023 signing. The mother had used a lawyer recommended by a neighbour and had kept no file. We traced the deposit through the Administrator General's records on the daughter's authority and identified the depositing attorney, who still held the original. That took three weeks and would have taken three days if anyone had kept the receipt.

Solving the authentication problem. The declaration of entry into force is filed online with the Administrator General, and the portal recognises two ways in: Israeli smart-ID authentication, or the personal password issued to the parties at the moment of deposit. A daughter living in Paris with no Israeli identity card has no smart-ID credentials, and the deposit password had gone in 2023 to an Israeli email address her mother had long since abandoned. This is the single most common practical failure we see with continuing powers of attorney held by families abroad, and it has nothing to do with the law. We filed through the certified attorney who had deposited the instrument, with the daughter's identity verified against her French passport. Non-residents attending the Administrator General's offices in person identify with a passport rather than an Israeli identity card, and the same logic was applied here.

The medical opinion. This was the piece that could have failed. The trigger written into the 2023 document required an opinion from a specialist in neurology or geriatrics confirming that the principal could no longer understand the matters covered. It did not require an Israeli physician, and that omission saved the family several months. Her Lyon neurologist's report was apostilled by the cour d'appel and rendered into Hebrew by an Israeli notary, at a cost in the range of NIS 251 for a short document under the fee scale in the Notaries (Service Fees) Regulations 1978, rising with length. Had the clause been drafted the way most Israeli continuing powers of attorney are drafted, naming an Israeli physician or an Israeli health fund assessment, the family would have faced the choice of flying a woman with dementia to Israel or running a Family Court application to vary the instrument.

The declaration went in during April 2026, after the daughter had informed her mother and her brother as the law and the document required. The Administrator General queried one point, whether the French neurologist's qualification corresponded to the specialty named in the document, which we answered with the Ordre des Médecins registration extract and a translated statement of the physician's board certification. Confirmation of entry into force issued seven weeks after filing.

In Practice: Israel is not a contracting party to the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults, which has been in force for France since 1 January 2009 and for Germany and, in respect of Scotland only, the United Kingdom since the same date. A French mandat de protection future under articles 477 and following of the Civil Code therefore carries no automatic recognition at an Israeli bank or at the Land Registry (Tabu), whatever apostille it bears. Where the only Israeli instrument is a foreign protective mandate and the principal has already lost capacity, the remaining route is a Family Court guardianship application at NIS 8,000 to 20,000 and 3 to 9 months, during which the Israeli assets stay frozen.

The Outcome

Bank Leumi recognised the daughter on the account nine days after we sent the Administrator General's confirmation letter, and released the accumulated rent the same week. Five months had passed since the bank's first refusal. The arrears were cleared, the tenant's lease was renewed on the daughter's signature, and the annual Israeli rental income return was filed on time for the first year in three.

The scope limits her mother wrote in 2023 turned out to be well judged. The instrument authorises management and letting of the Netanya apartment but withholds the power of sale unless the son as informed person consents in writing, and even then a sale would need prior approval from the Administrator General under Section 32F(d) of the Law. The daughter has no plan to sell, and the restriction has cost the family nothing while removing an argument that might otherwise have arisen between two siblings living in different cities. The guardianship route the family had been quoted for, before they discovered what their mother had already signed, would have cost NIS 8,000 to 20,000 to open and would have brought annual accounting to the Administrator General for as long as it lasted.

Key Takeaways

What this case illustrates for non-residents in similar situations:

1. A French mandat de protection future, an English lasting power of attorney, or an American durable power will not move an Israeli bank or the Land Registry. Israel is outside the 2000 Hague adults convention, so recognition has to come from an Israeli instrument, not from an apostille.
2. Depositing a continuing power of attorney with the Administrator General is not the same as activating it. The attorney-in-fact must file a declaration of entry into force with the required medical opinion, and nothing happens until the Administrator General's written confirmation issues.
3. Keep the deposit password and the certified attorney's details somewhere the family abroad can actually find them. Entry into force is filed online through Israeli smart-ID authentication or that password, and a relative overseas has neither unless someone planned for it.
4. Draft the trigger clause for a life lived abroad. If the instrument names an Israeli physician or an Israeli health fund assessment, a principal who has lost capacity in Lyon or Toronto cannot satisfy it without travelling. Naming a specialty rather than a jurisdiction solved this case.
5. Restricting the power of sale, or conditioning it on a second family member's written consent, costs nothing while the family agrees and is worth a great deal if they later stop agreeing.

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Facing a Similar Situation?

If you hold Israeli property or accounts and live abroad, the incapacity planning you have already done at home almost certainly does not reach them. The gap only becomes visible at the moment it can no longer be closed, which is why we treat this as a document to sign during a routine visit rather than a document to think about later. Our guide to the Israeli continuing power of attorney for non-residents sets out how the instrument is drawn up and signed, and we answer the specific French question in whether a mandat de protection future is recognised in Israel.

Contact us for a confidential consultation about your Israeli legal matter.