Money transfer for purchasing a property

I think that the best way currently and whose tax is less is: remessaonline.  contact them and ask their taxes for the amount

Hello,
I am about to buy a house for the value of 350k R$

What is the best way to transfer the money to Brazil (property owner's account ) from my UK HSBC account?

I do not have Brazilian bank account as I am on tourist Visa. I do have CPF.

Will I be paying taxes ?

Any advice is welcome !
-@flyangel669

Before I was a Resident, I used Tranferwise, now wise, to buy property. I did have to provide them with extra personal information prior to the transaction.

Taxes? You absolutely need to hire a professional in Brazil. You already should have your own attorney just to make any property purchase. The attorney should easily be able to handle the money receipt.

A fair word of warning. You better make sure the property and the house have all the proper and clear documents. What we call here in the USA the “deed” or “title”. It is quite common for people to sell properties who do not have these clear documents, especially when the buyer is paying cash because no financing is involved. You better heed Raypo’s advice and get a good attorney. By the way you better be damn careful with that too. There are more than a few unscrupulous lawyers looking for someone who doesn’t know how things work.

@KenAquarius thank you my fellow Aquarius.

I have already found a reputable lawyer and forwarded to him all the documents of the house.

What is strange in Island of Floripa is that most of the houses don't have title deed (escritura publica) . But everyone is acting as if it's normal ...

@flyangel669 Be very careful about properties with no deed. I would never do it.

As mentioned, Make certain all claims have been paid. I would see if your lawyer would set up what we call an "escrow account" in the US. They do not have this in Brazil, but my lawyer sent up an account with her bank for my funds. HSBC wired to this account with no issues. I did have to provide my attorney with my last tax filing (redact personal info) and HSBC sent an email to my lawyer for the last 2 months attached prior to closing. (Her bank requested this) Or you can print the staments and send them to your lawyer.

Never pay to owner direct! Have a specialist real property attorney to get a clear title. The time and costs of lawsuits here are worse than trying to save money. This will be the highest purchase to will make in Brazil. Do not save a penny and it costs you dollars!!!

09/22/22 There are LOTS of irregular properties  - houses built where building a house is illegal for one reason or another  - in any Brazilian city, and I would be surprised if Florianópolis didn't have its share.  But I strongly doubt that "most" of the houses in the capital of one of Brazil's most developed states are irregular, and this is more than just a red flag:  it's a big, flashing red light with a screaming siren.

According to my husband, the lawyer (to be), title to an irregular house vests in the municipality, and a person occupying public property can always be ejected, no matter how long s/he lives there.  So be very careful and be sure to have complete information and reliable advice, as everyone else has said.

@abthree Exactly! I know someone this happened to and they have been living there for years.

@KenAquarius so they didn't have title deed (property rights) but did they have the ownership rights ?

Well, in brazil you have issues with squatters rights. this is normally where you end up with houses with no deeds or titles. and that can be revoked at any point in time as there is no proof who owns it. its just an endless cycle that ideally save  yourself some stress.

Keep in mind like anywhere

If its too good to be true. It probably isnt.

good luck!

Like example. someone came back from usa after a period of time was in the news here. where someone squatted in their house. did renovations. claimed to fame. biggest issue was it was a vacant house so was a nightmare for the owner to assume control of the situation as well as finances involved

@KenAquarius so they didn't have title deed (property rights) but did they have the ownership rights ?
-@flyangel669

Always, always, always, hire your own attorney to buy any property in Brazil, do not even trust your own mother to buy property, let alone ANY seller.

@rraypo do you have a trustworthy lawyer to recommend ?

I had an agreement with a lawyer , wired him the money and now he is asking for more money !

I dont trust him any more.

@flyangel669 Apparently he had a “document” for the house but not the property it was sitting on. As others have said it is not uncommon for squatters to just occupy a space and claim it. Right now l know of several families living on land their fathers’ just built on. Now the land is far enough away from the city but they have zero claim to it. Who knows if someday someone will claim it? Among poorer people this is common.

@flyangel669 let me tell you...my cousins and friends all there explicitly  told me...do not buy under a purchase contract.. make sure it has escritura and matricula( bank financing-this way you know it's a safe buy). Ppl have lost their houses and  i could tell you real life horror stories. There are 15 checks they need to do to be safe. You don't  want to lose your place...and you can really easily.

@Cserebogar Agree 100%

@flyangel669

There is no posting links, phone numbers, or advertising allowed on here, but if you send me a message, I will do what I can to help.

The only other advice I will give you on here is to never, never, never trust a Realtor, any realtor unfortunately as there are too many bad ones, and I am sorry to any that are good, you are just one of the few. So, just use them to look at homes and property. Once you find what you like, only use your own attorney or professional facilitator to complete any purchase. The property purchase horror stories in Brazil just abound! Even if the property is coming from a close relative, always use your own attorney or professional facilitator to complete the background checks, sale, and transfer.

I am going through this process at the moment - we just closed on 12 acres outside of Rio de Janeiro, in Marica.  Final registration is in progress (as it is rural land, there are some additional documents the government needed).

As others have stated, hire a lawyer in Brazil to ensure taxes are paid, property is legally owned, review/create sales documents, etc.  If you need a lawyer there, PM me and I will provide contact details of mine.  He's fluent in English (lived in the US for a few years), responsive, and very trust-worthy.

Yes, you will have to pay taxes in Brazil.  You'll have to pay taxes upon property purchase and possibly on some/all of the money brought to Brazil to purchase by March of the following year, as I understand.  My attorney has an accountant who will help me with this next year. 

As to bringing in money, luckily my wife is Brazilian and she opened a bank account there earlier this year so we could deposit money there.  I was using wise or xoom.  Wise is better in terms of rates/fees.  However, we reached the limit where they wanted additional documentation (or their bank/agent in Brazil did) which I wasn't going to provide.  So, we carried some down on subsequent trips.  I also wired to Brazil from the US, either directly from my bank to her bank there (but the Brazil bank was screwing us on the exchange -- it's funny, at ATMs you can either accept their proposed rate or decline and get very close to the official rate.  Didn't seem possible with wires.  I also then wired in chunks via a friend (for 20+ years) who lives in Rio (owns a business) - either to his bank in the US and then he withdrew/deposited into my wife's bank or via him as an intermediate with a Cambio - he would provide me the bank info from the Cambio (typically a US bank), I'd send him a copy of the wire, the cambio would deposit in my wife's account, and I get confirmations from him (and via the bank app) that the money was deposited.  The latter cost about 2% and the rate was close to the official rate -- eg when the real was 5.1 to 1, I netted 5 to 1.   

if you wire money to your Brazilian wife, the transfer is styled as a gift and it is subject to gift taxes .... I'm not exactly sure what the limit is but its certainly lower than what a ypical piece of real estate costs.

thanks, Inubia.  A quick internet search shows dependent on state and value, but not exceeding 8%.  Will see what the accountant has to say next March.