Does a token represent legal ownership of a property?

You see an ad: “buy a fraction of an apartment in tokens”. The question that matters before any other is simple. Does that token make you the owner of part of the property, in the legal sense?

Under Brazilian law in force in October 2026, the short answer is no. The token may represent other things, some of them with value and legal protection. Ownership of the property, however, still originates and changes hands somewhere else: the matrícula, the property’s official registration record at the Registro de Imóveis (Property Registry).

This article explains what the law says, what the oversight bodies of the courts have decided about tokens and what a token can legally represent. It is an informational text, with the editorial team’s readings of public rules. It does not replace a lawyer’s analysis of a specific case.

What the law says about real estate ownership

Three articles of the Civil Code form the basis.

Art. 1,227 says that rights in rem over real estate created or transferred by acts between living persons “are only acquired upon registration at the Property Registry Office”. A right in rem is a right that bears directly on the thing and is enforceable against everyone, such as ownership, usufruct and mortgage.

Art. 1,245 is even more direct: ownership is transferred between living persons “through the registration of the conveyance title at the Property Registry”. Paragraph 1 adds: as long as the title is not registered, the seller “continues to be regarded as the owner of the property”.

Art. 1,246 sets the moment: the registration takes effect from when the title is presented to the registrar and entered in the registry office’s protocol book (prenotação).

There is also art. 108. For properties worth more than thirty minimum wages, a public deed, drawn up at a notary’s office, is essential to the validity of the transaction, unless the law provides otherwise. The deed is the title. The registration is what transfers.

In the editorial team’s reading, the consequence is clear. A contract, an unregistered deed or a token can create obligations between the parties. None of them, on its own, transfers ownership of a property.

Where ownership is recorded

The Public Registries Law (Law 6,015/1973) organizes this system. Art. 172 says that the Property Registry records and annotates acts that create, transfer or extinguish rights in rem, both for their validity and for their effect against third parties. Art. 176 requires each property to have its own registration record.

Art. 252 shows the strength of this registration: as long as it is not cancelled, it “produces all legal effects”, even if it is proven that the title was undone. In other words, whoever appears on the registration record is treated as the owner until the registration is cancelled through the proper means.

The system has not stayed on paper. Law 14,382/2022 created Serp, the Electronic System of Public Registries, and provided that records be kept, published and preserved electronically, under terms set by the National Justice Inspectorate of the National Council of Justice (CNJ). Digital registration, therefore, already exists. The question is who maintains it and with what legal effect.

The video on this page, a clip from the Token & Tech channel (in Portuguese), deals precisely with the path from the notary’s office to the Property Registry and why registration is the act that formalizes ownership.

What the oversight bodies decided about tokens

The corregedorias-gerais da Justiça (general justice inspectorates) are bodies of the state courts that supervise and set rules for notary and registry offices. In recent years, several of them have addressed tokens.

Rio Grande do Sul, 2021. The TJRS inspectorate issued Provimento (Order) 38/2021, reported by the court in November 2021. It allowed deeds for exchanging property in return for tokens. The conditions, however, already showed the limit: the parties had to declare that the tokens did not represent rights over the exchanged property itself, and the token’s name or blockchain link could not suggest so. The acts had to be reported to Coaf, Brazil’s financial intelligence unit. In other words, the token was the payment, not the property deed.

Rio Grande do Sul, 2025. In an act signed on October 24, 2025, the RS General Inspectorate suspended the effects of Order 38/2021, as reported by Registro de Imóveis do Brasil. The same report uses, in another passage, the word “revokes”; the editorial team did not locate the full text of the act to confirm whether there was a formal suspension or revocation. The practical guidance is for registrars in the state to qualify negatively, that is, refuse, titles that link properties to tokens or to “private ownership controls” outside Serp. The rule also requires offers that lead the public to believe tokens are fractions of properties to be reported to the inspectorate.

Santa Catarina, 2025. Circular 410/2025, with the text of Order 43/2025, added to the local code of rules a ban on any annotation, entry or registration linking the property record to tokens or blockchain representations, “whether or not intended to represent title to ownership”. The measure applies until there is a federal law or national regulation.

São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul, 2025 and 2026. According to IRIB, CGJSP Order 54/2025 and CGJMS Order 352/2026 adopted a similar ban, effective immediately and until the CNJ regulates the subject or federal law changes. The sources consulted disagree on the publication date of the São Paulo order (December 2025 or January 23, 2026).

Espírito Santo also issued a rule along the same lines, according to a JOTA report reproduced by the Colégio Registral do RS. The editorial team did not locate the number of that act.

What about the CNJ? In the same report, from February 2026, the National Justice Inspectorate stated that “real estate tokenization is not yet permitted in Brazil, as the service has not been regulated by the National Inspectorate to date”. Registry sector entities submitted guidelines to the CNJ in Request for Measures (Pedido de Providências) 0006613-89.2025.2.00.0000. As of the date of this article, the editorial team had not located any national CNJ normative act on the subject. This is the point most subject to change: check the current situation before any decision.

The case of the Cofeci resolution

The Federal Council of Real Estate Brokers (Cofeci) published Resolution 1,551/2025 in August 2025, which created a system of digital real estate transactions and concepts such as the “digital real estate token”. In October 2025, the 21st Federal Civil Court of the Federal District suspended the resolution’s effects in a preliminary injunction, at the request of ONR, the national operator of the electronic property registry. According to Anoreg, the judge found that Cofeci exceeded its regulatory power, which is limited to governing the profession, and that matters of civil law and public registries fall to the federal government.

According to an article published in ConJur in May 2026, the judgment declared the resolution null and Cofeci appealed, with the appeal still pending on that date.

So what can a token represent

If the token is not ownership, what is it? It depends on what is written in the contract and on who is responsible for it. In general, the structures circulating on the market use the token to represent one of these rights:

• Credit right. The token gives the right to receive payments, for example installments from property sales or rents assigned by a company.
• Equity in a company. The token mirrors quotas or shares of a company that is the registered owner of the property, such as a special purpose company (SPE, sociedade de propósito específico).
• Investment contract. The token gives the right to a share of the results of a venture run by third parties.

In all three cases, you hold a right against a person or company, not a fraction of the property. The article what is the difference between a token and a property title details these structures and what each record guarantees.

This is where the CVM (Brazil’s securities regulator) comes in. Law 6,385/1976, in art. 2, item IX, considers a security, when publicly offered, any collective investment contract that generates a right of participation, partnership or remuneration whose returns come from the efforts of the entrepreneur or third parties.

In Guidance Opinion 40/2022, the CVM states that the fact that an asset is digital or uses blockchain is irrelevant to whether it is a security. It also says that tokenization itself does not require prior approval, but that issuers and public offerings of tokens that are securities are subject to capital market rules.

In 2023, Circular Letter 4/2023/CVM/SSE warned that so-called “receivables tokens” or “fixed income tokens” are probably securities. The technical staff reported having found public offerings of this type that did not comply with the applicable rules.

According to the JOTA report cited above, the CVM understands that the inspectorates’ orders deal only with the property, not with investment contracts that have the property as collateral. In the editorial team’s reading, this means the token does not go on the registration record, but an investment linked to real estate can continue to exist, under CVM rules when it is a public offering of a security.

How to evaluate a “tokenized property” offer

Before putting in money, these questions help you understand what you would be buying:

1. Who appears on the registration record? Ask for an up-to-date certificate of the property record. If the registered owner is a company, you are buying a right against it, not the property.
2. What right does the token represent? Credit, quota, share in results? This needs to be written in a contract, not just on the website.
3. Does the offer fit a CVM framework? If it is a public offering of a security, it must follow some CVM rule. The 2023 letter cites, for certain cases, the crowdfunding regime of CVM Resolution 88/2022, through registered platforms. The absence of any framework is a red flag.
4. What happens if the platform or company goes bankrupt? Your right depends on the solvency of whoever issued the token. There is a risk of total loss.
5. Does the offer say the token “is” the deed? Language suggesting direct ownership contradicts the rules described above and should be treated with caution.

To identify misleading approaches in general, see crypto scams: how to identify and report them.

Key takeaways

In Brazil, ownership of a property is transferred by registering the title on the property record, and the seller remains the owner until that registration takes place. Inspectorates in at least five states have barred linking property records to tokens, and Rio Grande do Sul’s suspended in 2025 its 2021 rule that allowed exchanges with tokens. As of October 2026, the editorial team had not found national CNJ regulation.

This does not make every token linked to real estate illegal. It can represent credit, quotas or investment contracts, which have their own rules, including CVM rules. The point is to know exactly which right you are buying, against whom and with what guarantees, because none of them is the registered ownership of the property.