Progress in the understanding of very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs has developed at a fast pace in the last decade. Several pieces of evidence indicate that these very low-mass objects form in a manner similar to stars, and hence it appears natural to that they could host planetary systems. We are carrying out studies of the binary properties of very low-mass primaries, some new results will be presented. We have also embarked on a project to design, build and exploit a high-precision near-infrared echelle spectrograph for planet dection around very low-mass primaries. This instrument, called NAHUAL, is being designed for installation at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Canary Islands. The current status of the project will be discussed, as well as opportunities for the latino-american scientific community to participate.