The Brazilian government is truly amazing in its ability to complicate simple things. Take signing your name to a contract. In the US, at the end of negotiations a piece of paper is laid down on which is written everything the parties agree to and then all affected by the agreement pick up a pen and sign their names. That’s it. Deal’s closed.
Here in Brazil, there is an extra step. Once everyone has signed the contract then each signatory must prove that she is in fact the person whose name is signed on the document.
You prove the validity of your signature by having it notarized. The only way you can have your signature notarized is by having an official signature on record with one of the notary offices in your city. And that was what I got to do last week. I put my signature on record. Now, all I need is a contract to sign.
In an age when I can see and talk to my parents in the States while sitting on my couch in Brazil, this signature registration seems a touch outdated. I walked into the notary and gave them my RNE card (Brazilian green card). A man then typed my information onto what is essentially a 3×5 index card. He gave the card to me and told me to sign my name three times on the empty lines provided. I did. He stamped it and filed it away.
Now, I have an official signature. In the future if I’m signing an official document, let’s say a contract on a four-bedroom apartment with two parking spaces, just imagining here, once I sign the document I will have to go back to that same notary office. They will pull my card out and compare the signature on the contract to the signatures on the card. If they match, the notary will stamp the contract saying the person who signed “Brynn” is in fact “Brynn.” If they are different in any way, the notary will not affirm the signature. I either resign matching the index card exactly or I get sent to jail for fraud. Something like that.
I’m told this is a way to prevent fraud. I guess Brazilian criminals aren’t sophisticated enough to fake the ID shown to register the signature in the first place. They just run around trying to sign other people’s names on marriage certificates.
An American lawyer friend explained to me Brazilians and Americans have different ways of approaching fraud. Americans assume 95% of all transactions will be legit and make the process simple. They invest resources in prosecuting the 5% that is fraudulent. Brazilians invest their resources in trying to prevent fraud from ever occurring, hence the overwhelming amount of bureaucracy.
Obvious, not all fraud in America is persecuted, but neither does Brazil’s approach prevent fraud from ever happening. My husband, who knows something about fraud cases in Brazil, said most people would be surprised by just how often fraud occurs. So in the end the only thing a notarized signature prevents every time, is efficiency.
