His parents were Joan Ramon I, 2nd Count of Cardona, and his wife Joana de Gandia.
This made the young Joan Ramon a sitting peer, Count of Prades, in the parliament, already in lifetime of his father.
In 1445, as a belated consequence of the death of his father, he decided to renounce Prades and Vilamur in favor of his own son, Joan Ramon III.
When the Catalan Civil War broke out in 1462, the county of Cardona remained loyal to King John II of Aragon.
King John II of Aragon, battling against his own rebelling Catalan subjects, experienced extreme difficulties in 1467, but in 1468, his younger son and later King (from 1479) 16-year-old Ferdinand II of Aragon, received the military help of this 3rd Count of Cardona.