Transcription
Would a property co-owned with the Brazilian federal government qualify for the real estate investor visa?
Yes, so this is a very unique, is not necessarily exclusive to Brazil. It actually comes, I think, from the Roman, from the Roman institutes, from the Roman tradition. And and it goes like this: like some tracts of land, when they are too close to the beach, they are going to be co-owned by a a private owner and the federal government, right?
There is a special regime for those lands, and you basically get, you own, if I'm not mistaken, if it is something like between 84 and 86%. And then the ownership from the federal government, if I'm not mistaken, it would be from a 16 to 14% of the land, and then you still get like a deed, you have a title record. So, you know, this property would actually fully qualify for the real estate investor visa.
Now, this said, like they're going to be special obligations when it comes to those lands, right? And one example is like a yearly amount that you're going to need to pay the federal government, and the concept goes like this: well, if you are the owner of 86% or 84% of the land and the federal government owns like 16, and you're using the whole land, it means you should pay some money to the federal government.
So, every year you're going to pay, if I'm not mistaken, the name of the fee is like, like tax of use. Something like a tax for using the land, and you pay on a yearly basis, on a single payment. If I'm not mistaken, this one you cannot uh pay in installments. I may be mistaken. Okay, so this is one of the special obligations.
Uh, there is another one, which I think is pretty important to foreign citizens. Uh, when you buy, you know, this special land, you're going to need a an authorization from the federal government to transfer the land to a foreign citizen. Okay, so if a Brazilian buys it, like there is no special authorization required. But if a foreign citizen is buying this land, guess what? You're going to need a special type of authorization.
There is a procedure to pursue that, and it works fine most of the time. Like I remember a case here at the firm in which the person was trying to get this transfer for 10 years. Okay, so it works fine in most of the time. When it doesn't, then yes, it becomes a pretty uh big pain in the neck.
For this client in particular, we had to file a mandado de segurança. Uh, rough translation into English would be writ of mandamus, which is a legal remedy you need to file against the federal government for the federal government to take action. And it was super interesting. Like this thing was stuck for 10 years. I think we tried for a couple of years to get this thing done uh through an easy mean approach, right? Like filing requests, going, you know, uh to the specific uh uh servants in charge of the department.
And once we realized like people would just, you know, uh they wouldn't take the time to read. Like it was a a a 300 or 400 page file. And you know, those folks, they probably in their heads, right? Like they had better things to do other than reading the files. And and uh once we filed like a lawsuit against the federal government, it was very interesting. Like in less than 30 days, uh there was a decision that uh they allowed uh, you know, the property to be transferred uh to the first citizen.
But uh, yeah, very common in in uh like um uh the Brazilian government, if it is something is straightforward, uh you talk to someone, you know, like they can understand, you know, like they say, "All right, like let me get rid of this person." They they're making this thing move. If it is something complex, is very difficult for you to get a a public employee to take the time to understand and and do their job, okay? And uh uh that's uh somewhat unfortunate, okay? Not everyone, of course. I mean, of course, there are many uh good public employees in Brazil, but maybe it is something cultural. Like if you have a something complex for you to be able to get traction within like a public uh department of a certain government, very challenging uh most of the time.