In an effort to mitigate the obstacles caused by the Covid-19 crisis and ensure the proper maintenance of essential services, the National Council of Justice (Conselho Nacional de Justiça – CNJ) published provision No. 100/20, determining the nationwide practice of notarial acts completion of titles and deeds remotely and electronically, using video conferencing and digital signature. Consequently, the provision revokes all the previous state rules, in order to standardize the procedures throughout the country.
The new electronic system allows for:
- the implementation of the Electronic Notarial Registration (Matrícula Notarial Eletrônica – MNE);
- the provision of digital certificates and notarized electronic signatures, as well as systems for conducting notary videoconferences;
- the installation of the Notary Central for Digital Authentication (Central Notarial de Autenticação Digital – CENAD);
- the organization of the Single Registry of Notary Clients (Cadastro Único de Clientes do Notariado – CCN), the Single Registry of Final Beneficiaries (Cadastro Úncio de Beneficiários Finais – CBF) and the Single Index of Notarial Acts (Índice Único de Atos Notariais– IU); and
- other resources that intend to optimize notarial services by electronic means.
Thus, for the exercise of electronic notary acts, the notarial service must be registered on the e-Notariado platform, and the signatory parties must have the digital certificate, which will be issued free of charge in the registered notarial services.
Electronic notarial acts, originating in any state, may be executed through the e-Notariado platform, accessing the link: http://www.e-notariado.org.br/
The interested party must appear in person at the registered notarial service to request the issuance of the digital certificate, which will be used for a specific time and exclusively by its owner. However, ways to make the certificate available remotely are already being studied, thus avoiding the physical displacement of the parties involved.
For this purpose, CNJ established the criteria for carrying out electronic notary acts, as follows:
- The videoconference is essential and must contain, at least: (i) the identification, the demonstration of the capacity and the free manifestation of the parties involved in the remote notary act and attested by the Notary Public; (ii) the parties’ consent and express agreement with the entire content of the electronic public deed; (iii) the object and price of the agreed deal; (iv) the date and time of the remote notary act; and (v) the indication of the book, page and Notary Public responsible for the practice of that remote notary act.
- The drafting shall be the responsibility of the notary of the district of the property or the domicile of the competent purchaser. If the property and the buyer are in the same state, the buyer can choose any use of the federative unit to carry out the act.
- All signatures will be made exclusively via electronic certification provided by the notarial service. Even the notary’s signature must be done through an ICP-Brasil digital certificate.
Territorial competence criteria are also established for each Notary Public:
- when there are one or more properties of different circumscriptions involved in the same remote notary act, the Notary of Notes of any of them (article 19, § 1) will be competent;
- if the property is located in the same state of domicile as the acquirer, the act may be carried out in any Notary Public of that State (art. 19, § 2);
- in case of a fact to be stated in public records, the Notary of the district of that fact will be competent or, when this criterion is inapplicable, the competence will be of the Notary of Notes of the applicant’s domicile (art. 20).
Provimento nº 100/20 is a major milestone for the gradual transition from commercial relations to the virtual environment, being yet another of CNJ’s commendable efforts to implement an electronic system that employs greater speed and optimization of notarial acts.
