Inheriting Brazilian Assets from Abroad

A parent, spouse, or relative dies owning something in Brazil — an apartment, bank accounts, company shares, land. You're abroad. The first thing to understand is jurisdictional and non-negotiable: assets located in Brazil pass through Brazilian probate (inventário), under Brazilian law, regardless of the deceased's nationality, residence, or what a foreign will provides. Your home-country probate, however complete, does not move a single Brazilian asset.

The two tracks

Extrajudicial (notary) probate — available when all heirs are adults, agree on the division, and capable; runs at a notary office rather than court. With organized documents, it can close in two to six months. This is the track to fight to stay on.

Judicial probate — required when there are minor heirs, disagreement, or certain complications. Court timelines: commonly one to three years, sometimes more. Worth avoiding when avoidable, which is precisely what early legal coordination among heirs achieves.

Forced heirship: the rule that reorders expectations

Brazilian law reserves 50% of the estate for "necessary heirs" — descendants, spouse, ascendants — in defined shares. Wills control only the remaining half. A foreign will leaving everything to one person operates on Brazilian assets only to the extent the reserve allows. The spouse's position depends heavily on the marriage property regime, which is why the regime chosen at a wedding decades ago becomes suddenly decisive. None of this is intuitive to common-law-country heirs; all of it is mechanical once mapped.

ITCMD: the tax with a deadline

Each Brazilian state levies inheritance tax — ITCMD — at rates currently up to 8% (commonly 4-8%, several states progressive), due before assets transfer. States impose deadlines for opening probate (often 60 days from death) with penalties for delay. Translation: the cost of leaving a Brazilian estate "for later" compounds, while the empty apartment accrues condo fees, IPTU, and risk.

How heirs abroad actually do this

1. Each heir signs a power of attorney — at a Brazilian consulate, or locally with apostille and sworn translation — appointing Brazilian counsel.
2. Asset and document gathering: death certificate (foreign deaths: apostilled, translated, registered), the property matrículas, bank balances, share registries. Where the family doesn't know what exists, formal asset searches find out.
3. Heir qualification: proving the family tree with certificates — the genealogy, in documents.
4. Tax and partition: ITCMD computed and paid; the partition deed signed (by your attorneys-in-fact) at the notary.
5. Registration: assets registered in heirs' names — then, if the family wishes, sold, with proceeds lawfully remitted abroad.

No heir needs to set foot in Brazil at any step. The entire structure runs on properly drafted POAs — which is also why the POA drafting deserves care: registries read them literally, and a defective one stalls everything for the weeks a replacement takes to cross the ocean.

If you own Brazilian assets now

Read the above as your heirs' future and consider the planning version: a Brazilian will for Brazilian assets (coordinated with, not contradicting, your home will), regime and beneficiary structures that use the disposable half deliberately, and a document file your family could actually find. An afternoon of planning here saves your heirs a year of process there.