How to recognize a divorce in Brazil

“I already got a divorce from my brazilian wife in my country, now she called me saying that we must get divorced again in Brazil. What should I do?”

This is a very common problem in Brazil. According to the brazilian laws, it is mandatory for all brazilians who got divorced abroad to ratify this divorce at the brazilian courts. If this is not carried out the individual will, for all legal purposes, remain married. Often I receive this kind of question from my clients or from my clients former spouses, asking why they should get divorced twice. However, it is important to realize that without this procedure in Brazil, the divorce will not be recognized.

In Brazil, the divorce must be ratified by the Superior Court of Justice - not to be confused with the Supreme Federal Court, the highest court of the country.

UPDATE FROM 2017: Simple divorces, where there are no children and no special partition of assets, now can be reigistered directly in a local cartório (public notary office), skipping the lawsuit.

The documents required for this process are:

1) power of attorney to represent the client in the divorce ratification process;

2) original foreign divorce decree, duly certified by a public notary in the country of origin AND in the Brazilian consulate;

3) translation of the foreign divorce decree to brazilian portuguese;

4) certified copy of marriage registration in Brazil (if any);

5) former spouse's address for the formal judicial notice;

6) if possible, power of attorney granted by former spouse, with powers to accept the recognition of the divorce in Brazil, duly certified by a public notary in the country of origin AND in the Brazilian consulate;;

7) certified copy of your identity card or passport.

The entire process before the Superior Court of Justice generally takes about 01 year. With the acceptance of both spouses, the powers of attorney of both and the declaration of acceptance of  divorce ratification, the time may be reduced.

I have been working in this type of procedure for quite some time. If you have any questions, just send me an email or a comment here on this blog!

See also:

- HOW TO: Getting Married in Brazil

- When marriage ends what happens to the foreigner's permanent visa in Brazil?

HOW TO: Getting Married in Brazil.

This is a guest post from Mr. Nuno, my intern, who publishes Brazil Business 101.

______________________________________________

Hello everybody, here is something that a lot of people have been asking me, you a good looking “gringo”, find a good looking Brazilian, you fall in love, then you decide to get married here, now, WHAT TO DO?.. Here is the procedure you’ll need to take. (the entire procedure will be covered in 4 posts)  

*Little observation, every Cartório (notary) has it's own procedure, this are the minnimum requirements, it may alter from city to city or from cartório to cartório.

First of all you need to get all you documents and get everything registered and ready to be used in your marriage.

 Documents required for registration 

• Original Birth Certificate of the groom or bride – (Authenticated* / consularized in the Brazilian Embassy or Consulate in the country of origin of the betrothed). This procedure will not be done in the ministry of international relations of Brazil or in an embassy in Brazil so do this in your county.

• Certificate of marital status of the groom or bride, (Authenticated*  /  consularized in the Brazilian Embassy or Consulate in the country of origin of the betrothed). This procedure will not be done in the ministry of international relations of Brazil or in an embassy in Brazil so do this in your county.

• Certified copy of passport (main pages, and by that I mean, everyone that has something written on).

• Two witnesses on the day of  the marriage, with at least 18 years of age, known to the couple and that can provided with identity and CPF (Brazilian “Social Security Number”), they can be relatives, but cannot possess a proxy of any of the spouses (if the marriage is taken place outside the notary, you’ll need four witnesses);

• If your wedding is by PROXY, the proxy should be recorded in the notary or Brazilian consulate in the country of origin of the betrothed. This procedure will not be done in the ministry of international relations of Brazil or in an embassy in Brazil so do this in your county.

The proxy must contain:

• Name that the bride will use after the wedding. Note: you can only add a name, never delete one.

• Name the groom will use after the wedding. Note: Same as the above.

• Specify in the proxy if the spouse will be present on the day of the wedding.

• Not being present, you must specify that the prosecutor shall have full powers to represent the betrothed before the Judge of Peace (the person who conducts the marriage) in the wedding.

• Specify the property regime to be adopted, i.e Universal Communion of Assets, Full Separation of Assets (we will cover this in another post.). In the regimes of Universal Communion, Separation and Participation in Final Aqüestos  is mandatory to present a prenuptial agreement, drawn up in the Registry of Notes.

Note: The documents of the first two items above must be translated by a sworn public translator in Brazil, then you must authenticate (also to be covered in another post) the translator’s signature on a Notary, after this procedure you must record the translated documents in the Registry of Deeds and Documents.

For a divorced person.

• You must have your divorce sentence or similar, approved by STJ (Superior Court) and attached to all the documents above.

This was part 1, more to come.

When marriage ends what happens to the foreigner's permanent visa in Brazil?

I have been following this interesting discussion at the Gringoes forum, an internet debate place for foreigners who live or want to know more about Brazil. You may check it at:

http://www.gringoes.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13882&PN=2

Here is my answer to the question posted  by one of the members

"Hello,

I have been following this discussion with interest, because the issue is controversial even among lawyers.

In my opinion, Dunga's comments are closer to reality.

Fact is, no  Visa is permanent. They are just called Permanent, but they could be called "Long term" as well. For instance: permanent visa due to investment may be revoked if the investment is repatriated.

Also, there are sovereignty aspects to the granting of visas.

In legal terms: any visa is subject to the special conditions that may be required by the National Immigration Council.

In this sense:

Estatuto do estrangeiro:

Art. 17. Para obter visto permanente o estrangeiro deverá satisfazer, além dos requisitos referidos no artigo 5º, as exigências de caráter especial previstas nas normas de seleção de imigrantes estabelecidas pelo Conselho Nacional de Imigração.

On the other hand, current visa owners could say that their Visa is already an "ato jurídico perfeito", or acquired right, that could not be revoked due to future regulations.

In practice, when it wants to, Government will just issue and enforce  new regulations in spite of the "ato jurídico perfeito". Conflicts are solved in court.

So, in conclusion:

Getting divorced does not imply immediate loss of the Permanent Visa.

But,

The government may, at any time, create regulations that restrict the rights of current visa owners. For example, demanding proof of marriage to be presented every year, subject to Visa cancellation. (note that this is hypothetical. Such rule does not exist, at least yet).

This would create a juridical problem that might result in the Visa cancellation, subject to an administrative (and maybe judicial) procedure where the foreigner's conduct and adherence to any regulations would be evaluated.

However, in spite of the visa cancellation being a theoretical possibility, truth is it is not common."