Buying Property in Brazil as a Couple: Marriage, Ownership, and the Deed
Most foreign couples arrive with one question: whose name should go on the deed? It is an important question, but other questions need to be answered first. In Brazil, your marriage and the rules for sharing property between spouses can affect who owns the property — beyond the name typed into the escritura (the public deed).
If you were married abroad, the Brazilian notary and property registry need proof that you are married and of the property rules that apply to your marriage. This is true whether or not either of you is Brazilian. If one of you is Brazilian, check early whether the foreign marriage must be entered in Brazil’s civil registry. That step is called traslado.
These questions should not be treated as a last-minute formality. How you should own the property is not something a web page can tell you; it depends on your marriage, finances, and plans.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules for married couples and registry requirements vary and change; your transaction should be reviewed by a licensed Brazilian attorney. Hire your own Brazilian lawyer before signing, authorizing someone to buy for you, or sending money.
Reviewed by Luciano Oliveira, LL.M., attorney admitted in Brazil, Texas, and California. Last reviewed: October 2026. Content updated: October 30, 2026.
PHASE 1 · PREPARE
Before choosing the names on the deed
Confirm whether you are married, divorced, or in a legally recognized partnership.
Check where each of you lived when you married and any marriage agreement.
Prepare marriage records, proof of the property rules, and translations.
Confirm who will own the property, pay for it, sign, and register it.
1. The name on the deed does not tell the whole story
Where Brazilian law applies and no valid agreement or special legal rule says otherwise, the default is comunhão parcial. Under this system, property bought during the marriage generally belongs to both spouses, even if only one spouse is named on the escritura.
Property owned before the marriage, and gifts or inheritances received individually, generally stay individual. There are exceptions, and the source of funds matters. For example, a purchase made with money from selling a separately owned asset may remain separate if that source can be proved.
Sources: Civil Code: property regimes, consent, separate assets and succession · LINDB: applicable law, including art. 7 §4 and art. 10
Your marital status must appear in the public deed and the property’s official record, called the matrícula. This information is required and affects people’s rights. A married person may own separate property under different marital-property systems; owning the property alone and needing your spouse’s permission are separate questions. The buyer is still described on the deed as “casado” (married), never “solteiro” (single).
Your spouse’s permission is generally required to sell or mortgage property, though there are exceptions and a court may authorize the transaction in some cases. Permission can be necessary even for a separately owned asset. And separação obrigatória—a separation-of-property system required by law in certain cases—is not a shortcut. Whether property bought during that marriage is shared needs a review of the law and your circumstances.
Sources: Civil Code: property regimes, consent, separate assets and succession
2. Declare your marital status truthfully
If someone suggests a shortcut — put it in one name, say you are single, nobody checks, we will sort it out later — stop and ask your lawyer to review the proposal. An informal workaround does not remove the rights of a spouse or partner.
Deliberately giving a false marital status in a public deed can be a crime, called falsidade ideológica. Whether a criminal charge applies depends on what happened and the purpose of the false statement. It can also create ownership disputes and problems with the property record.
Sources: Penal Code: art. 299
A false statement may lead to different criminal charges depending on the facts. Do not treat a false declaration in the deed as a harmless paperwork shortcut.
And it can be very hard to undo. The damage may surface years later — when the couple finally understands what they signed, when they try to sell, or when the inheritance is being settled because the “single owner” has died.
By then a public deed and a public register may both contain inaccurate information about the parties and their rights. Correcting it means going back into the public record, explaining the false declaration, and dealing with the other spouse’s share of the couple’s property (meação) — and, where someone has died, with the heirs. The workaround that took five minutes at the notary can take years to unwind.
3. If one of you is Brazilian: check the marriage record
If either of you is Brazilian, check the requirements for entering your foreign marriage in Brazil’s civil registry. This is the traslado. The entry goes in a record called Livro “E,” at the designated civil registry for your Brazilian legal home, or in the Federal District if neither spouse has a legal home in Brazil. The CNJ rules allow this registration without a court order.
A foreign certificate generally needs an apostille or consular legalization—official certification for use abroad—and an official Portuguese translation. A Brazilian consular marriage certificate follows a different document process.
Registration at a Brazilian consulate abroad does not replace the later traslado in Brazil. Confirm the required steps and timing before the purchase.
Sources: CNJ Resolution 155/2012, art. 13, as amended by Resolution 583/2024 · Consular guidance: marriage registration and subsequent traslado
A foreign marriage may already be valid before the traslado, depending on the rules for recognizing it. A missing Brazilian record does not make you single.
The practical consequence is what matters: without it, the Brazilian record may not adequately show the marriage or the property rules that apply, and the property registry may refuse to register the deed for that reason. The temptation to simply write “single” is not a solution and may expose you to the consequences described above.
4. Confirm which country’s property rules apply to your marriage
Which law sets your marriage’s property rules? Not automatically Brazilian law. Brazilian rules look to the spouses’ domicile when they married. If their domiciles differed, they look to the couple’s first shared domicile. Domicile means a person’s legal home; your lawyer should check it from your circumstances, rather than assume it from your passport or a temporary address.
Your home country’s rules may therefore apply to your property in Brazil.
Sources: LINDB: applicable law, including art. 7 §4 and art. 10
The problem: many foreign marriage certificates do not state the property rules for the marriage (regime de bens). There is nothing on the document for a Brazilian registrar to read — and the registry will not guess.
A São Paulo court considered this problem in a 2016 case. A widow whose marriage was governed by Swiss law sought to register the sale of her property. She argued that Swiss law’s default regime applied, since there was no record of a different agreement.
The Court agreed Swiss law governed — and refused anyway, because the missing information could not simply be filled in by assuming the default rules applied.
The concern was that selling as though the property were wholly hers could harm her late husband’s heirs if it had actually been shared property.
Sources: TJSP 2016: proof of the marital regime for a sale
The blocked transaction was a sale. Missing proof can affect a purchase too; it is not a problem to postpone until resale or death.
And this is not a Brazilian-spouse problem: in 2025 the same court refused registration to an American and a Uruguayan married in California, requiring a Brazilian consular declaration explaining the marital-property rules in California in that case.
The decision also explained that their situation differed from the Brazilian marriage-registration procedure for marriages involving a Brazilian spouse. The lesson from these São Paulo decisions is practical — whether you are Brazilians or foreigners married abroad, the property rules must be proved before the registry can record them.
Sources: TJSP 2025 decision reproduced by the São Paulo Notarial College
Proving the existing rules is different from changing them
A certificate that says nothing about property rules often means you are missing proof of the rules that already apply. Your lawyer must first check which law applies using the relevant domicile history. Missing information is not permission to choose a different system.
For marriages covered by the CNJ traslado procedure, the marriage may first be entered in Livro “E,” and the property rules then added to that record. Adding the information is called averbação.
Accepted proof can include a suitable consular statement, certification by two lawyers practicing in the relevant country, or the foreign law itself. Ask which proof, certification, translation, and registration steps your case requires.
Once the information has been added, you hold a Brazilian marriage certificate that states the property rules for your marriage, which can address the missing information. If both spouses are foreign, confirm the proof accepted for the property registration; do not assume this same civil-registration route applies.
Sources: CNJ Resolution 155/2012, art. 13, as amended by Resolution 583/2024
Adding proof to the marriage record does not create a new agreement choosing different property rules. If you want to change the rules, that is a separate legal step. Under the ordinary Brazilian procedure, changing a marriage’s property regime requires a court’s authorization. Agreements governed by foreign law and agreements between unmarried partners need a separate review.
Sources: Civil Code: property regimes, consent, separate assets and succession
The 2024 clarification. CNJ rules specify how to prove the property regime so it can be added to a marriage record through the applicable traslado procedure without a court order. In practice, expect requirements that depend on your documents.
If a registry asks for more — or refuses — obtain the reasons in writing. A lawyer can decide whether to provide more proof or challenge the decision through the registry system or the courts. A refusal does not by itself mean that the registry has misunderstood the law.
Sources: CNJ Resolution 155/2012, art. 13, as amended by Resolution 583/2024
5. If you are not married: a legally recognized partnership
Brazil can recognize a relationship as a união estável (stable union) even without a wedding. Where Brazilian law applies, the usual property rules are similar to comunhão parcial, unless a written cohabitation agreement provides otherwise. Property bought during the union generally becomes shared property, subject to exceptions.
Both partners’ consent is generally needed to sell shared real estate. If one partner did not agree, the outcome can also depend on whether the buyer knew, or could reasonably have known, about the union.
Under a Brazilian Supreme Court ruling, a surviving partner inherits under the same succession order as a spouse when the stable union is proved. The STJ’s 2025 decision in REsp 1,982,343/SC also recognizes the partner as a necessary heir. For the relationship requirements, see our stable-union guide.
For a foreign partner funding a purchase, the consequence is blunt: a court can later find a stable union existed and apply the rules for shared property, even without a formal certificate. Whether to sign a cohabitation agreement, and on what terms, is again a question about your particular relationship.
Sources: STJ: stable-union consent and good-faith third parties · STF Tema 809: spouse and partner succession
6. Should you hold it through a company?
Not by default. A holding company carries ongoing costs — accounting, required reports, and meeting legal duties — that should be compared with the expected benefits. A real-estate portfolio or a larger-value property may justify considering a company, but neither makes it automatically suitable.
It also does less than people imagine: the marriage’s property rules can also apply to the company shares, so shares acquired during the marriage may be shared property that must be divided on divorce — a company does not by itself remove a spouse’s rights.
Do not assume that transferring a property into a company in exchange for shares avoids ITBI, the property-transfer tax. One Supreme Court ruling limits the tax protection where the property’s value exceeds the capital being paid into the company.
In October 2026, the STF decided Tema 1,348: the capital-contribution immunity also applies when the company’s main activity is real estate, subject to the capital-value limit and the prevention of simulation or fraud. Ask your lawyer to check how the decisions apply to the proposed contribution, the registration requirements, and the wider tax costs before choosing a company.
Sources: STF Tema 796: ITBI and capital contributions · STF Tema 1.348: real-estate activity and ITBI immunity
7. What happens at death or divorce
Where the marriage’s property rules give you a meação, it is your own share of the couple’s shared property. It is not an inheritance. The deceased person’s share, together with their separately owned assets, forms the estate to be distributed.
Where Brazilian inheritance law applies, certain close relatives have a legally protected share. They include children and other descendants, parents and other ancestors, and the spouse. The STJ has also recognized a surviving stable-union partner as a necessary heir; do not assume an unmarried partner can simply be left out of a will.
The share protected for these heirs is collectively half of the estate; who receives it depends on the family and the rules that apply.
How much the surviving spouse or partner inherits in addition to their own property share depends on the marriage’s property rules. That is why checking those rules matters before buying. For more detail, see our guides to marriage asset regimes, Brazil’s forced heirship, and probate and estate administration.
Sources: Civil Code: property regimes, consent, separate assets and succession · LINDB: applicable law, including art. 7 §4 and art. 10
8. Resolve these points before signing
There is no default answer for every couple. The right structure depends on your marriage’s property rules, which of you is Brazilian, your legal-home history, what you already own, and what should happen if one of you dies. Those questions should be addressed before deciding how to describe the buyers or divide ownership.
Have your lawyer identify the marriage and other records needed, proof of which law applies, and any information that must be added or corrected. Confirm ownership, funding and signatures. Identify who will own the property, where the money comes from, and who must sign. The notary prepares the public deed and the property registrar checks whether the documents can be registered; neither replaces independent advice on the couple’s interests.
With couples, a documentation problem may surface at a sale, a separation, or an inheritance case — when the deed says one thing and the marriage’s property rules say another.
For advice on your proposed purchase, speak with a senior bilingual attorney before you sign. The initial consultation identifies the issues and next steps; substantive document review and purchase representation require a separately agreed scope.
Or write to [email protected].
Frequently Asked Questions
Should both our names be on the deed?
For property shared under the marriage’s property rules, both spouses may have rights whether or not both names appear on the deed. The deed must accurately describe the purchase, the buyers, and whether they are married. The names alone do not settle who owns what. Make sure the property rules are proved and correctly recorded.
On divorce, does my Brazilian spouse get half even if only my name is on the deed?
If Brazilian law and the default regime apply (comunhão parcial), property bought during the marriage generally becomes shared property, subject to exceptions — so the name on the deed does not decide it. The property rules and any exceptions determine the result.
Do I need my spouse’s signature to buy or sell property in Brazil?
To sell or mortgage, generally yes, although an agreed separation-of-property system and other exceptions may change the answer. In some cases a court can authorize the transaction. To buy, you must still truthfully declare your marital status and the property rules that apply. Financing or a mortgage can introduce additional signature requirements.
Can I register the property in only my name — or only my Brazilian partner’s?
Not to hide a marriage. The deed and property record must state your true marital status. Deliberately giving a false status can be a crime, depending on the facts and your purpose. Whether one spouse can own the property alone depends on the marriage’s property rules and how the asset was acquired, not on convenience.
Will the prenup I signed abroad protect my Brazilian property?
It may help, but your lawyer must check whether the agreement is legally effective, which law applies, what it covers, and whether it affects other people’s rights. Official certification, a sworn Portuguese translation, and registration may be needed. A registry will not simply take a foreign document at face value.
We married abroad and our certificate says nothing about a property regime — can we still buy?
Yes, but you need acceptable proof of the property rules that apply to your marriage. In the relevant cases involving a Brazilian spouse, CNJ rules allow those details to be added to the Brazilian marriage record without a court order, with the required proof. If both spouses are foreign, confirm the documents required for the property registration rather than assuming the same procedure applies.
We are not married and buying together — does a “stable union” give my partner a claim?
It can. Where Brazilian law applies, a união estável usually follows the shared-property rules explained above unless a written cohabitation agreement says otherwise, so property bought during it can be shared. When the agreement was signed, whether it is legally effective, and whether others could know about it all matter. Do not assume a new agreement removes rights your partner already has.
Should we hold the property through a company?
Compare the maintenance costs, taxes, and plans for inheritance first. A company can make sense for a portfolio or a larger-value property, but it does not by itself remove a spouse’s rights, because the marriage’s property rules can also apply to the shares.
General information only, not legal advice. Marriage-property rules and registry requirements vary by state and change; confirm your position with a licensed Brazilian attorney.
Related guides: Marriage asset regimes · Closing costs & taxes · How to buy property in Brazil · Forced heirship · Brazil real estate services