I Need a Copy of That…

One of the requests we often get from clients is for copies of Brazilian documents. Perhaps it’s the deed to a house owned by your deceased aunt. Or maybe it’s a copy of your grandfather’s birth certificate. Heck, it might even be your own marriage certificate.

The documents exist; the challenge is finding them.

Brazil’s a big country, and there’s no central government database where all documents are stored. For the most part, you can’t simply run a search and find what you need. Instead, you’re left doing a lot of digging.

Most documents are kept by local notary offices. If you know which notary has the document you need, then the process isn’t all that difficult. But if you don’t, forget it. Just for context, the city of São Paulo has 126 notary offices alone.

Another challenge is that most notary offices require more than just a name to run a search. Usually, they’ll require a CPF (tax ID number), which you may not know. And sometimes the notary will ask for other information, such as date of birth or, in the case of real estate documents, the property address or deed (matrícula) number.

It’s not to say that documents can’t be gotten. Just know that there’ll be a lot of research, a lot of telephone calls, and a lot of trips to notary offices. And, of course, all of this takes time and costs money. The better prepared you are from the outset, the easier (and cheaper) it will ultimately be.