Source: Jornal do Commercio - PE, 27/04/2009

For six years, the World Bank has published Doing Business, a report in which it assesses where it is easier to do business in the world. Different aspects are taken into account, such as opening companies and obtaining credit. The study also includes the registration of properties, a service usually provided by notaries, in countries of Latin origin.

In Doing Business 2009, Brazil appears 111th in this regard, among 181 countries. Even with the average time to register a property, in Brazilian registries, it has fallen from 47 days to 42 days since 2006. But, in the same period, the average cost of the service increased by 2,5% of the property's value to 2,7%.

Registry offices exist in 76 countries, according to the Unión Internacional del Notariado (UINL). But they have virtually no representation in Anglo-Saxon countries, such as England and the United States. However, even in other large Latin countries the registry offices do not reflect the Brazilian bureaucracy. In Italy, registration takes 27 days. In Spain, it's 18 days. Even when the comparison is with Portugal, where the delay is the same as in Brazil, 42 days, five registration procedures are enough, against 14 steps in the Brazilian registry offices.

“There are notaries (notary publics) in 76 countries, with the exception of Anglo-Saxons. The activity brings us legal certainty. What cannot be admitted are the distortions, poor service provision and people who have no training, ”says the assistant judge of the presidency of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), Marcelo Berthe.

Berthe says that Bahia is the state with the worst service in Brazil. The data appears in a 2006 version of the Doing Business, which assessed Brazilian domestic conditions in 12 states and the Federal District. In the Bahian registry offices, the only ones in Brazil controlled by the state government (they are not a public concession), the delay in obtaining registration was 88 days. Comparing term and cost, according to the report, the most difficult registration was the one carried out in Mato Grosso do Sul, which left in 83 days and required an expense equivalent to 4,6% of the property's value.

In the 2006 report, a northeastern state was the national champion of speed: Maranhão, with 27 days. The state ranked fifth overall in terms of ease of doing business, of the 13 Brazilian locations, despite having the lowest per capita income in the group. “This good performance is due to the fact that Maranhão employs cutting-edge technologies in several areas. Notaries, for example, computerized their records ”, which, the report continues, resulted in the shortest term in the country.