Inventário from Abroad: The Power-of-Attorney Route Step by Step

Inventário from Abroad: The Power-of-Attorney Route Step by Step

Most foreign heirs who inherit in Brazil never set foot in a Brazilian courtroom or notary office. The estate is opened, the assets declared, the tax paid, the partition signed and the transfers registered by a Brazilian attorney acting under a procuração — a power of attorney — executed by each heir in the country where they live. The mechanism is old and well understood by Brazilian courts and notaries. The difficulty, for families abroad, is that the document has to be right the first time, and “right” depends on where it is signed, what it says, and what the estate will later need.

This page is the step-by-step version of that route. It covers the two ways to execute the POA (consular and apostilled-notarial), what sworn translation and registration involve, the powers the document must contain, how to coordinate heirs in several countries, the extrajudicial and judicial tracks as seen from abroad, the deadlines, and the few situations in which a trip to Brazil is actually required. For the estate process as a whole, read it alongside our guide to inventário for foreign families; for the search that usually precedes it, see how to find assets a relative left in Brazil.

The rules this page turns on

“A Brazilian estate run from abroad succeeds or fails on three documents: the death certificate, the CPF and the power of attorney. The first two are administrative. The third is legal drafting, and it is where most delays are born.” — Zachariah Zagol, Founding Partner, OAB/SP 351.356

Why is the power of attorney the centre of the process?

Brazilian succession law transfers the estate to the heirs at the moment of death (Código Civil, art. 1.784), but the heirs cannot deal with any specific asset until the inventário identifies the estate, settles the inheritance tax (ITCMD) and formalises the partition (CPC, arts. 610–673). Every step of that process — filing, declaring, paying, agreeing, signing, registering — is an act that either the heir or a duly authorised representative must perform. Brazilian law also requires a lawyer in both tracks. On the notarial track the Code of Civil Procedure is explicit: the notary may only draw up the deed if every interested party is assisted by an advogado or a public defender, whose name and signature appear in the deed (CPC, art. 610, §2). Resolução CNJ 35/2007, art. 8 says the same and adds that the lawyer’s presence does not itself require a power of attorney — only their name and OAB registration in the instrument.

The POA is what lets a single Brazilian attorney do both jobs: represent the heir as procurador for the acts of the estate, and act as counsel for the proceeding. Without it, each heir would have to sign each instrument personally, in Brazil.

Step 1: Documents Before the POA

The POA is rarely the first document to prepare. Three things usually come first, and can run in parallel:

1. The death certificate. If the death occurred abroad, the certificate is apostilled in the issuing country, sworn-translated into Portuguese, and transcribed at a Brazilian civil registry (Registro Civil das Pessoas Naturais) under Lei 6.015/1973. Courts, notaries and banks act on the Brazilian transcription, not the foreign original.
2. Each heir’s civil documents. Birth certificates establish descent; marriage certificates establish the surviving spouse’s status and marital property regime, which determines what share of the assets is inheritance and what is the spouse’s own half (meação). These are apostilled and sworn-translated in the same way. Our apostille guide covers which authority issues the apostille in each country.
3. A CPF for each heir. No Brazilian court, notary, bank or property registry will transfer assets to a person without a CPF. Heirs living abroad apply through the Brazilian consulate or Receita Federal’s online channel; the CPF guide walks through the form. The CPF is also written into the POA, so obtaining it first avoids a second consular visit.

Step 2: Choosing the Execution Route — Consular or Apostilled

There are two ways to execute a POA outside Brazil that Brazilian courts and notaries will accept. The choice is practical rather than legal; both produce a valid document.

Route A: Consular POA (procuração consular)

Brazilian consulates exercise notarial functions abroad. The enabling rule is narrow and worth reading before an heir books an appointment: under the Law of Introduction to the Rules of Brazilian Law (Decreto-Lei 4.657/1942, art. 18), Brazilian consular authorities are competent to perform atos de tabelionato “tratando-se de brasileiros” — that is, for Brazilian nationals. A Brazilian heir abroad can therefore have the consulate draw up a public power of attorney (procuração pública) in Portuguese. A foreign national who is not also Brazilian cannot use this route and must use Route B below, however close the consulate is.

The Brazilian heir attends in person with identification (and the CPF, if already issued); the consular officer drafts the instrument from a template or from the text supplied by the Brazilian attorney; the heir signs; and the consulate issues the document with its seal.

Advantages:

• It is a Brazilian public instrument, so it needs no apostille, no translation and no registration at a Brazilian titles registry.
• Notaries and courts accept it without further formalities, and it satisfies the public form that Brazilian law requires for certain acts (see Step 4).
• The consulate can, in many posts, issue the CPF at the same appointment.

Limits:

• Nationality. Available to Brazilian nationals, including dual nationals. A foreign-national heir — a surviving spouse who never naturalised, a step-child, a beneficiary under a will — must use the notarial-plus-apostille route.
• Appointment availability. Consulates in cities with large Brazilian communities may offer slots quickly; smaller posts can take weeks or months. The heir must appear in person at the consulate with jurisdiction over their residence.
• The text is drafted at the consulate, so the attorney should send the exact wording in advance and the heir should not accept a generic template that omits special powers.

Route B: Foreign notarial POA + apostille

The heir signs the POA before a local notary public (or the equivalent officer in their country). The notarised document is then:

1. Apostilled by the competent authority of the issuing country under the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, which Brazil joined in 2016 (Decreto 8.660/2016). In the United States that is usually the Secretary of State of the state where the notary is commissioned; in the United Kingdom, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; in most European countries a ministry or court.
2. Sworn-translated into Portuguese in Brazil by a tradutor público — the profession regulated today by Lei 14.195/2021. Translations by non-sworn translators, however accurate, are not accepted in Brazilian proceedings. Our sworn vs regular translation comparison explains the distinction.
3. Registered at a Registro de Títulos e Documentos (titles and documents registry) in Brazil together with the translation, which is what gives a foreign-language document effect before Brazilian authorities (Lei 6.015/1973, art. 129).

If the signing country is not a party to the Apostille Convention, step 1 is replaced by consular legalisation at the Brazilian consulate — the apostille vs consularization comparison sets out the difference.

Advantages:

• No consular appointment; a notary is usually available the same week.
• Convenient for heirs far from any consulate.

Limits:

• Three additional steps and their lead times.
• Form. This is the single most common reason a POA is rejected, and on the notarial track it is not a matter of local practice but of a written national rule. Brazilian law requires the mandate to follow the form the underlying act requires (Código Civil, art. 657), and for the extrajudicial inventário Resolução CNJ 35/2007, art. 12 states that heirs may be represented only by a procuração formalizada por instrumento público com poderes especiais — a public instrument carrying special powers. A foreign notary who merely acknowledges a signature on a document the signer wrote has not produced a public instrument; a notary in a civil-law country who draws up the deed themselves generally has. Where the estate will be concluded by a notarial deed, the attorney confirms the form with the receiving notary before the heir signs, because a private-form POA cannot be cured after the fact from abroad.

Which route to choose

Step 3: What the POA Must Say

This is the part of the process that cannot be delegated to a template.

The general rule: special powers must be express

Under Código Civil, art. 661, a mandate in general terms confers only powers of ordinary administration. Anything beyond — selling, encumbering, settling, or any act that exceeds ordinary administration — requires express special powers (art. 661, §1). An inventário is a sequence of such acts. A POA that says “to represent me in the inventário of my late father” without listing the powers will be questioned by the notary or judge at the first act that requires more.

Powers a probate POA usually includes

The document also identifies the parties fully — the heir with passport number, CPF, marital status and address; the attorney with OAB registration; the deceased with name, CPF and date of death — and may be limited to that estate.

What the POA should not do

• It should not be drafted to sell without the heir’s actual decision to sell; the power is reversible only by revocation, which itself requires formalities.
• It should not name the buyer’s side or a real-estate broker as the heir’s attorney-in-fact, a pattern that appears in disputes.
• It should not carry an expiry date that will lapse before the estate closes, unless the heir wants that control.

“I ask families to think of the POA as the whole estate written in the future tense. If there is a chance the apartment will be sold, the power to sell goes in now. A power that is in the document and never used costs nothing; a power that is missing costs a consular appointment and a season.” — Zachariah Zagol, Founding Partner, OAB/SP 351.356

Step 4: Heirs in Several Countries

International families rarely live in one place. A typical estate has a sibling in Florida, another in Lisbon, a surviving spouse in São Paulo and a grandchild in London representing a predeceased parent. Each of them is a party to the inventário.

• Each heir executes their own POA, by the route that suits their country. There is no need for a single document signed by everyone.
• The powers must be consistent. If one heir’s POA lacks the power to agree an unequal partition, the whole partition waits. The attorney circulates one master text and adapts only the identification.
• A single attorney may represent all heirs when their interests are aligned; where interests diverge — for example a surviving spouse whose meação must be separated from the children’s inheritance — separate counsel may be appropriate, and the notary or judge may require it.
• Minors and heirs lacking capacity cannot grant a POA; they act through their legal representative, and their presence generally routes the estate to the judicial track with the participation of the public prosecutor (Ministério Público). Resolução CNJ 571/2024 added art. 12-A to Resolução CNJ 35/2007, which allows a notarial inventário that includes a minor or an incapable interested party only where two conditions are met: the minor’s share (or meação) is paid as an ideal fraction of every asset in the estate, and the Ministério Público gives a favourable opinion, which the notary must obtain before the deed takes effect. Acts disposing of the minor’s assets remain barred, and any objection by the public prosecutor or an interested third party sends the matter to court.
• A foreign personal representative (an executor appointed by a US or UK court) does not automatically represent the heirs in Brazil. The Brazilian inventário deals with the heirs themselves; the foreign executor participates only if the heirs authorise it or if a Brazilian court recognises the appointment.

Step 5: The Extrajudicial Track from Abroad

The notarial inventário under Lei 11.441/2007 and Resolução CNJ 35/2007 is the route most families abroad hope to use, because it is concluded by a single public deed rather than a court file.

Requirements, as they look from outside Brazil:

• All heirs adult and capable, and all in agreement on the partition. Agreement is expressed through the POAs.
• A will: the Code of Civil Procedure still directs an estate with a will to the judicial track (CPC, art. 610). Resolução CNJ 571/2024 added art. 12-B to Resolução CNJ 35/2007, permitting a notarial inventário despite a will where all of the following hold: every interested party is represented by a lawyer; the succession court has expressly authorised it in the will-opening proceeding by a judgment that is final (transitada em julgado); all parties are capable and in agreement; and, where a will was invalidated, revoked, broken or lapsed, that too was recognised by a final judgment. If the will recognises a child or contains any other irrevocable declaration, the notarial route is barred outright and the estate must go to court. Practice still varies by state, and a notary in doubt is required to refer the question to the court with jurisdiction over public registries.
• An attorney signs the deed with the parties.
• Taxes paid before the deed is executed: Resolução CNJ 35/2007, art. 15 provides that “o recolhimento dos tributos incidentes deve anteceder a lavratura da escritura”. In practice this means the ITCMD declaration is filed and settled under the POA first, and the notary will not sign until the receipts are in the file.
• Free choice of notary: Resolução CNJ 35/2007, art. 1 (as amended in 2020 and again by Resolução CNJ 571/2024) provides that the choice of tabelião de notas is free and that the Code of Civil Procedure’s rules on territorial competence do not apply. The deed may therefore be executed before any notary in Brazil, whatever the deceased’s last domicile and wherever the assets sit. Families often choose a notary in the city where their attorney practises.
• Certificates: negative certificates of federal tax debt in the deceased’s name, updated property-registry certificates, the CENSEC will search, and the heirs’ documents, all assembled by the attorney.

The deed is drafted by the notary from the attorney’s minute, signed by the attorney-in-fact for each heir, and then registered at each property registry and presented to each bank and registry that holds an asset. The judicial vs extrajudicial comparison sets the two tracks side by side.

Step 6: The Judicial Track from Abroad

Where the notarial route is unavailable — a disagreement, a minor, a contested will, an heir who cannot be located — the attorney files the inventário in the court of the deceased’s last domicile in Brazil, which CPC art. 48 makes competent “ainda que o óbito tenha ocorrido no estrangeiro” — even where the death occurred abroad. Only where the deceased had no settled domicile does the sole paragraph of art. 48 shift the forum: first to the place where immovable property is situated; if immovables lie in more than one forum, to any of them; and if there is no immovable property, to the place of any asset of the estate. From the heir’s perspective the sequence is:

1. Opening petition and nomination of the inventariante (CPC, arts. 615–617), who may be the attorney-in-fact where the heirs so agree and the judge accepts.
2. Primeiras declarações — the estate schedule (CPC, art. 620).
3. Citation of all heirs, the spouse, the tax authority and the public prosecutor where required; heirs abroad are cited through their attorney-in-fact when the POA carries the power to receive citation (CPC, art. 105).
4. Valuation, ITCMD, creditor claims.
5. Últimas declarações, partition plan, homologation.
6. Formal de partilha, then registration.

Where the heirs are in agreement and the estate qualifies, the streamlined arrolamento sumário (CPC, arts. 659–663) shortens the court phase considerably; the arrolamento comum (CPC, art. 664) applies to smaller estates. On either, the POA does the same work as on the full inventário.

The judicial track also gives access to tools that exist nowhere else — a SISBAJUD sweep of bank balances, court-ordered valuations, and citation by public notice for an heir who cannot be found — which our asset search guide explains.

Step 7: ITCMD, Timing and Deadlines

Three clocks run at once, and the POA route has to respect all of them.

For heirs abroad, the practical consequence is that the POA and CPF steps should start as soon as the family decides to proceed, so that the attorney can open the estate with the assets already known and complete the schedule later. Assets discovered after the partition are added by a supplementary partition (sobrepartilha, CPC, art. 669) rather than by reopening everything.

ITCMD itself is a state tax with rates and brackets that differ by state; the ITCMD calculator and rates-by-state table give the current figures, and the inventário cost estimator sets it alongside the other official cost items.

When is a trip to Brazil actually required?

Rarely. The situations in which heirs actually travel fall into a short list:

• A judge orders personal appearance — uncommon in an uncontested inventário, more likely where there is a dispute over facts (for instance, a contested claim that a partner was in a stable union with the deceased).
• A bank insists on the account holder’s heir in person for a particular operation. Most banks accept the attorney-in-fact with the partition instrument, but internal policies differ and the attorney will ask in advance.
• A POA that turns out to be defective cannot be replaced in time from abroad. This is the avoidable case.
• A sale of estate property where the buyer’s notary requires the seller in person. With a POA carrying express power to sell, this is not required; some buyers nonetheless prefer it.
• Family choice. Some heirs travel to see the property, meet the attorney or attend the signing. It is a choice, not a requirement.

Where a trip does happen, it is usually short and scheduled around a single act. It does not replace the POA, which continues to cover everything else.

A Worked Sequence for a Family Abroad

Consider an estate with a São Paulo apartment, a bank account and a car; the deceased died in the United States leaving three adult children — one in Texas, one in England, one in Brazil — and no will.

No heir travelled. The elapsed time is driven by apostille and consular lead times, the ITCMD processing time at the state tax authority, and registry turnaround — not by any legal minimum.

What goes wrong on the POA route?

• Signing a generic POA from a consulate template that omits the partition and registration powers.
• Leaving out the power to sell when the family expects to sell the property and remit the proceeds.
• Naming a family member in Brazil as attorney-in-fact without special powers, so that they cannot in turn engage counsel or sign the deed.
• Skipping the RTD registration of a foreign POA, so the notary refuses it at the signing.
• Letting the CPF wait until the deed is ready, then discovering the heir’s CPF is suspended or was never issued.
• Assuming a foreign executor’s letters authorise anyone to act in Brazil.

Related Reading

• Inventário in Brazil for foreign families — the full proceeding
• How to find assets a relative left in Brazil — the search that precedes the filing
• Power of attorney in Brazil — guide for foreigners — the instrument in general
• Public vs private power of attorney — the form question
• Judicial vs extrajudicial probate — choosing the track
• ITCMD calculator · Inventário cost estimator · Property closing-cost calculator — for a later sale of an inherited property

Sources

• Código Civil (Lei 10.406/2002) — arts. 657, 661, 1.784
• Código de Processo Civil (Lei 13.105/2015) — arts. 48, 105, 610, 611, 615–617, 620, 659–664, 669
• Lei de Introdução às Normas do Direito Brasileiro (Decreto-Lei 4.657/1942) — art. 18 (consular notarial acts)
• Lei de Registros Públicos (Lei 6.015/1973) — art. 129, 6º (registration of foreign documents)
• Resolução CNJ 35/2007, consolidated text — arts. 1, 8, 12, 12-A, 12-B, 15
• Resolução CNJ 571/2024 — the 2024 amendment (minors, wills, sale by the inventariante)
• Decreto 8.660/2016 — Hague Apostille Convention in Brazil
• Lei 14.195/2021 — sworn translators and interpreters (arts. 22–33)
• Lei estadual SP 10.705/2000 — ITCMD-SP, art. 21 (penalties)

How ZS Advogados Handles Estates from Abroad

ZS Advogados Associados represents heirs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and elsewhere in Brazilian inventários, judicial and notarial, in any Brazilian state. The firm drafts the POA text for each heir’s route, coordinates apostilles, translations and CPFs, runs the proceeding in Portuguese and reports in English. Zachariah Zagol (OAB/SP 351.356) is the attorney responsible. The scope and fees are set out in a written proposal after an initial conversation.

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