Changing Agents: How to Revoke the SPA or Authorization You Gave Your Former Agent and Notify the BI

The short answer: put it in writing, make sure it is received, keep proof, then tell the agencies

Revoking a special power of attorney (SPA) or authorization letter you gave a former agent comes down to three moves: a written notice of revocation, proof that the agent actually received it, and records you keep yourself. After that, tell every agency the agent used the authority with. Saying "we are done" in a chat message does not cancel the document. The paper the agent holds still looks valid to any counter clerk who has never heard that you switched agents.

This is where many people get stuck when they change agents. The new agent files at the Bureau of Immigration and the counter finds the old agent still listed on the file. Or the old agent keeps checking status and collecting documents in your name without telling you. An authorization does not quietly expire by default. Unless it named an end date or the specific task is finished, third parties will generally treat it as alive until it is formally revoked.

For how to write an authorization in the first place and when it needs notarization, see how to write a Philippine authorization letter. If the former agent is already sitting on immigration mail addressed to you, see when a former employer or agent withholds your BI mail. This guide covers only the revocation itself and how to make it clean, so that nothing is left hanging when the new agent takes over and the old one walks away with no live authority in your name.

One practical point before you start: do the revocation before, or at the same time as, signing the new agent's authorization, not weeks afterwards. Overlapping authorities are exactly what confuse a counter clerk looking at your file.

Step one: work out exactly what you signed and for whom

Before revoking anything, take stock: how many authorizations you signed, who received each one, what tasks each covered, and whether any carried an end date. People often remember "one piece of paper" when there were really several: one for the agency, one for a staff member at the agency, perhaps a broad SPA plus a few task-specific letters for particular filings.

A practical way to organize it:

1. Find the copies. Search your email, chat history, and the folder of receipts from that time. Where you have no copy, ask the agent for one in writing. That request is itself useful evidence later.
2. Read the scope. Did you authorize only "filing a specific application", or "handling all immigration matters, receiving correspondence and collecting documents"? The wider the scope, the more thorough the revocation needs to be.
3. Check for notarization. A notarized SPA carries more weight with outsiders, so the revocation should ideally be equally formal.
4. Check whether the grantee is a person or a company. If you authorized a company, send the revocation to its registered address and copy the individual handler. If you authorized an individual, send it to that person.

If you genuinely cannot find what you signed, do not let that stop you. A notice that revokes "all authorizations previously issued by me to you, in whatever form and of whatever date, effective upon receipt of this notice" covers the gap well enough.

While you are taking stock, also list the matters that are actually pending: an extension in process, an I-Card awaiting release, a report due. Those are the files where the old authority is most likely to surface, and the first places your new agent will need a clean record.

Step two: what the revocation notice should say, and whether to notarize it

The more specific the notice, the better: who you are, who is being revoked, which authorizations, from when, and a demand that the agent stop acting in your name and return your documents.

A workable notice usually includes:

1. Your full name as on your passport, nationality, passport number, and your Philippine identity document number such as your ACR I-Card number.
2. The full name of the person or the registered name of the company being revoked, with address.
3. The authorizations being revoked, by date and title where you have them, plus the catch-all wording for anything you cannot locate.
4. The effective time, typically "upon receipt of this notice".
5. What you require: that they immediately stop filing, inquiring or collecting anything in your name, and return within a reasonable time your passport copies, original application papers, receipts and agency acknowledgments.
6. Your signature and the date.

Whether to notarize has no single answer. If the original authorization was notarized, notarizing the revocation is the safer choice, because you may need to show it to an agency later. If you are abroad, you can have it notarized where you are and authenticated as required, following roughly the same route you used to sign the original. Which form an agency will accept is governed by current counter practice, and a licensed lawyer can draft it if the stakes are high.

Keep the tone neutral and factual. Do not use the notice to accuse the agent of anything. You want a document that will hold up when shown to anyone later, not a letter that starts an argument.

Step three: delivering it with proof, and what if they refuse to sign

A revocation binds the agent when they receive it, so choose delivery methods you can prove afterwards. A single chat message lets them later claim they never saw it. Only provable delivery really counts.

Common methods, which can be combined:

1. Hand delivery with a signed receipt. Bring two copies and ask them to sign and date the one you keep. If they refuse, have a companion witness it and note the time and place on the spot.
2. Registered mail or courier to their registered address, keeping the sending slip and the delivery record.
3. Email at the same time to their usual address, with the full text in the body and a scanned copy attached. Keep the sent record.
4. A short chat message telling them the notice has been sent, with a screenshot saved.

If the agent deliberately refuses to sign or reply, that does not prevent you from completing the revocation. Your courier record, witness note and email trail show you did what was needed to notify them. The real risk is different: the agent continuing to use the old authority at an agency counter. That is why the next step matters more than the argument over signatures, and why it should follow quickly rather than weeks later.

If the former agent is also holding your passport or original documents and asking for extra money to release them, that is a separate problem. See an agent holding your passport and demanding an extra fee.

Keep the originals of all delivery proof yourself rather than leaving them with either agent. If a dispute ever reaches a lawyer or an agency, the person holding the paper trail is the person who can prove when the authority ended.

Step four: notify the Bureau of Immigration and other agencies, and take back the contact details

Once the revocation has reached the former agent, every agency where the agent used that authority should be told it has been withdrawn. Agencies do not check the status of your authorizations on their own initiative. If you do not tell them, the old authority stays attached to your file.

The usual places to notify:

1. The Bureau of Immigration. If you have a pending application or documents waiting for release, go to the counter handling your case with a copy of the revocation, your passport and your ID, explain the situation, and ask for the representative and contact details on the file to be updated. Whether someone else can do this for you, or you must appear personally, follows the counter's current requirements; see which BI transactions need you in person.
2. Online accounts. If the former agent registered immigration or labor department online accounts with your details, recover or re-register them and change the login email and phone number. See a locked BI online account.
3. Your employer or school. If a company or school sponsors your visa, tell its HR or registrar that you have changed agents, so they stop handing papers to the old one.
4. Banks, landlords and anyone else the agent dealt with on your behalf.

Note the date, the person you spoke to and their response each time. Hand this log and a copy of the revocation to your new agent. It makes every later conversation with the agency easier.

Do these notifications promptly. The gap between revoking the agent and telling the agency is the window in which the old agent can still collect a document or file something in your name.

How Yixing can help, and a filing checklist for before and after

Changing agents is not the problem. Leaving the old authority half-alive is. Keep these in one folder:

1. Copies of the old authorizations, or your written request for copies.
2. The signed revocation notice and any notarization or authentication.
3. Proof of delivery: signed receipt, witness note, courier record, email record.
4. Your notifications to the Bureau of Immigration and others: date, counter, contact person, acknowledgment.
5. A list of documents the former agent returned, or your written demand for those not returned.
6. A copy of the new agent's authorization, written narrowly.

For the new authorization, name the specific task and a time limit, for example "to file a named application for a named year and collect its acknowledgment", ending when that task is done. Avoid another open-ended "all matters" authority that you will one day have to revoke again.

What Yixing can do: help you list your pending matters and old authorizations, draft the revocation and a task-specific new authorization, accompany you or represent you at the Bureau of Immigration to update the representative on file where the counter allows it, and take over the pending applications. We hold SEC registration (CS202009551) and Bureau of Immigration accreditation (BI Accreditation No. CA-202624381-1, valid until 30 June 2027), plus DOLE accreditation; see our visa and HR services. What we cannot do: recover fees from the former agent for you, give a legal opinion on your dispute with them, or guarantee any agency's handling or timeline.

This is a process overview, not legal advice. For your specific case, consult a licensed Philippine lawyer. Yixing is a private consultancy with no affiliation to the Bureau of Immigration or the labor department; current counter practice always governs.