Annotation (Averbação)

Annotation (averbação) is the procedure by which facts or legal acts that modify, extinguish, or affect rights related to a property or its owners are formally recorded on the title record (matrícula) at the Real Estate Registry Office (Cartório de Registro de Imóveis, or CRI). It complements registration — which transfers or establishes rights — by keeping the title record continuously up to date.

• What gets annotated: construction or demolition of a building; change in the owner’s marital status (marriage, divorce, legal separation); name change; creation or discharge of a mortgage or fiduciary lien (alienação fiduciária); usufruct; easement; attachment (penhora); seizure (arresto); a lien of unavailability; and other acts affecting the legal status of the property.
• Difference between registration and annotation: registration establishes or transfers the real right (e.g., registering the deed of purchase and sale); annotation records facts that modify or extinguish situations already registered (e.g., annotating the discharge of a mortgage after the debt is paid).
• Habite-se (occupancy permit): annotating the habite-se (the certificate of completion issued by the city government) is mandatory for the construction to be counted as part of the registered property. Without it, the building legally does not exist for registry purposes, and a bank cannot finance the property as a completed structure.
• Restrictive clauses: clauses of inalienability, judgment-proofing, and incommunicability imposed through gifts or wills are also annotated on the title record and bind future buyers.
• Timeline and public notice: after filing, the CRI has a regulatory deadline to complete the act. A title record updated with all annotations is the true mirror of the property’s legal status.

In Florianópolis, annotating the habite-se is a critical step for properties under construction and new developments: without it, an off-plan apartment cannot be individually financed after handover, which stalls the sale and the registration process in the final buyer’s name.