Advice on registering birth – Foreign father not present for birth

05/14/24 @BrazilianSoul.  The requirements for registering the birth of a child with the father absent appear here:

https://www.gov.br/pt-br/noticias/assis … ei-federal

The most relevant part for your situation is this, which appears in the "Como emitir 1a via" section, is:

"in case the father cannot complete the registration, it is the mother's responsibility to complete the registration alone.  But she must present the marriage certificate or a declaration of the father, with a signature authenticated by a cartório. Without this, the mother will be able to complete the registration in her own name only."

You should contact the Brazilian Embassy in Dublin to confirm what the requirements of your declaration are that your partner should bring with her.  The Consular Section of the Embassy will probably be able to tell you the form that the declaration should take, and whether you will need to have your signature authenticated by them, or if a notarized declaration with an apostille will be sufficient.  Your partner should also have an authenticated copy of your complete ID document.  Since it sounds like this process will be totally unfamiliar to her cartório, she should have a copy of the page above from the official site with her.

All this being said, your path of least resistance would probably be for her to give birth in Ireland if that's possible for you and for the two of you to register the newborn at the Brazilian Embassy.  The Embassy will issue a Certidão Consular de Nascimento, which can then be registered at the Cartório do 1o Ofício of your partner's hometown the next time you're in Brazil.  The consular information from the Dublin Embassy appears here:

https://www.gov.br/mre/pt-br/embaixada- … nascimento

Best of luck to you.

Thank you so much for the feedback abthree.

Following consultation with the Brazilian embassy in Dublin and the Irish consulate in Brasília we have ascertained that the birth can be registered by presenting  a Power of Attorney (procuração) to the Cartorio in Minas Gerais. Some  notarized/apostilled documents will also be required.

My partner's sister is a lawyer in Brazil so hopefully this should negate any issues that may arise.

Its en train at present so will let you know the progress to hopefully answer any questions anyone else may have in the future.

Brasileira, meu amor, Brasil!

05/18/24 @BrazillainSoul.  What good news!  You were very wise to start planning ahead so early.  It sounds like you  have a good plan that should work.  And you're right:  having an attorney in the family should smooth out any possible wrinkles in no time.  All the best!

Hey guys,

So just an update here for anyone else who faces the same issues in the future.

As mentioned in my last message we were considering a POA with the Brazilian embassy. There was too much red tape and difficulties, at least with the embassy in Dublin so we abandoned this idea.

We contacted the Cartório in Mina Gerais and established that a declaration of paternity signed by a certified public notary would suffice, in fairness to the Cartório they were very helpful the second time around and outlined exactly the documents that would be required. 

I contacted an authorised translation service and notary in Dublin. We drafted the deceleration, translated and notarized it then got an apostille of this document, a certified true copy of my passport and an apostille of the passport and birth certificate.

The whole process cost 330 Euros which is roughly $358. It could probably have been done a bit cheaper but I paid the notary a service fee to take the documents to the Irish department of Foreign Affairs to get the apostilles as it’s on the other side of the city and I was busy with my work/too lazy to make the trip myself.

I then sent digital copies of all the documents to the Cartório to check everything was in order. They confirmed what I had supplied was sufficient, now all that is left is for my partner to bring the original document’s to register the birth.

Can relax now and looking forward to welcoming my daughter in November, great to get it all resolved early!