How can foreigners safely buy property in Brazil?

How can foreigners safely buy property in Brazil?

Is it possible to obtain a residence visa in Brazil through real estate investment?

Brazil has always been a popular destination for foreigners looking to diversify their investments through the Brazilian real estate market or looking for a place to enjoy their vacation and retirement. From the vantage point of Famex and Feldmann Advocacia, a law firm which handles the legal part of the process, we can see that this trend has grown exponentially over the past few years based on the increase in cases of foreigners acquiring properties in Brazil that we have worked on.

In our analysis, this movement is motivated by two factors: after the pandemic, many companies adopted a work from home policy, providing people with the possibility of choosing where they want to be based, without the need to live in large urban centres. Another reason – and in our opinion more relevant than the first – that we highlight to be responsible for this growth is the devaluation of the Brazilian real (BRL).

In addition, Brazil is well known as a country receptive to foreigners, with excellent investment opportunities and with the potential for financial gains, with unmatched weather and scenery. Since the beginning of the pandemic, with the exception of a few brief periods, the dollar has remained above BRL 5.00 (reaching almost BRL 6.00 in May 2020).

The euro and the pound sterling also followed this trend against the real, reaching record levels as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. The governments and central banks of countries around the world had to take socioeconomic measures to contain the effects of the crisis, which required an injection of resources. The battle is now to tame inflation, boost growth and control interest rates.

So, in this article we will address the step-by-step process of acquiring a property by a foreigner in Brazil:

1st Step – Obtain a CPF (Individual brazilian tax number): Essential when registering the property in the

customer’s name and to carry out the exchange operation (Feldmann Advocacia can assist with this process);

2nd Step – Find the property;

3rd Step – Draw up a purchase/sale contract for the property and formalise the proposal: at this point, it is

important to have the support of a lawyer specialising in real estate law to analyse the terms of the contract and

issue the relevant certificates, performing real estate due diligence;

4th Step – Register with Famex: At this stage the client will provide their documents needed to carry out the

exchange operation;

5th step – Opening an account in reais: Opening the account will serve to process all payments related to the

purchase of the property, e.g the purchase amount, notary fees etc;

6th Step – Send foreign currency funds to Brazil: Once the 4th and 5th steps have been completed, a bank channel (in one of our partner banks) will be made available on behalf of the customer to send/recieve the foreign currency;

7th Step – Finalising the exchange: After receiving the funds in foreign currency, Famex will convert the foreign currency into reais;

8th Step – Payment of the property: Famex will (once authorised by the buyer) send the funds to the account of the property seller.

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