Expert: Ken Rapoza Cruz - 3/10/2009

Question
I work with a company dealing with real estate.  The company wants to acquire the land and am in the process of locating the inheritors.  Some have moved to Brazil.  I have the name and date of birth of the inheritors, where do I contact to get the Brazilian's certificates (some of them have Japanese nationality).

Also, some live in different parts of Brazil, could you tell me which internet homepages to go to in order to find phone numbers?

Thanks,
Marian

Answer
if you have their names, you need the following info from them:

1) If they are Brazilian citizens, what is their CPF number? (Like a Soc. Security number). What is their RG number? Registro Nacional. This proves they exist in the eyes of the government as tax paying citizens. If they own land, but dont have a CPF and RG, then they dont "own" land. Or, they own a legal battle.

2) Once you have that you can contact a lawyer to track them down, and this lawyer can represent you in the purchase here. OR

3) If you are looking to find the people to contact them directly, you can go to the Federal Police (FBI), or Receita Federal (IRS). The IRS will know where they live if they are tax paying citizens.


But I am not sure that you can just "get" that information.  And for this reason, you will need a lawyer.

Sure you can use some yellow pages on line (I dont know of any), but do you know what state these people live in? Do you know what region of the state? There can be a dozen Mariana Takahashi's in Sao Paulo. This is why you need to have CPF and RG numbers to verify that this is indeed the person you are looking for.