Brazil Plans for Online National Notary System

Last December, the Brazilian government decided it was time for notary offices to go virtual. The Sistema Eletrônico dos Registros Públicos, or SERP, promises to be an online portal that integrates services from the roughly 10,000 registries existing throughout the country.

SERP would reduce costs with notary services while at the same time speeding up processes by cutting down bureaucracy. For example, there would be no more waiting hours in line for certificates or real estate registration documents.

Another advantage would be that both Brazilians and foreigners could more easily find the notary office where their documents are filed. Say you’re looking for information about a property in Rio, but you don’t know which notary office has a copy of the deed. With SERP, you’d avoid having to take trips from one registry to another. Instead, you’d just enter the data in an online search.

While the news so far is exciting, the actual planning by the government is somewhat disappointing. First, if Congress doesn’t pass the provisional law within 60 days, everything will remain as is. Second, the ETA for the creation of SERP isn’t until 2023. Third, each notary office will have to fund the system and establish its own platform that would connect with SERP. And lastly, there’s no assurance that past registrations would be digitized in the system.

Although the next steps are still unclear, Brazil is at least making some effort to modernize its notary system and create something a bit less difficult to deal with.