Aplicações da blockchain e smart contracts no direito imobiliário: um estudo de juridicidade

Abstract

Blockchain and smart contracts represent a combined technological innovation that extends to a wide range of purposes. Its emergence is due to the financial market turmoil in 2008, aiming to become an alternative that offers security, agility and verifiability without relying on intermediaries. Comprising a decentralized network, an auditing mechanism and enabling contractual automation, soon it started to be endorsed as a means of facilitating the registration and acquisition of assets. The present study sought to better understand this system in practice, trying to address how these technologies dialogue with the legal plan and their viability as now. For this, at first, we contextualized the evolution of notary information in the country, to identify the wounds that could be cured with technology. Then proceeded to discuss the concepts of Blockchain and smart contracts, how they operate and their potentialities. Based on aspects of the real estate business model that uses the tools, it was possible to identify challenges and technical-legal obstacles, with the help of recent decisions taken in the territory of Rio Grande do Sul. From the registry office point of view, the technology is promising and can interconnect several public bodies, alleviating the so-well known sluggishness and lack of transparency, especially those from notaries, and inaugurate the Principle of Concentration of Acts in the Property Registry. However, it will hardly replace the notarial function, which is still essential in document management, serving as a valuable accessory that will require adaptation and training. Contractual wise, its implementation is still quite problematic, due to the risks arising from the inherent immutability and self-executability, which can generate costly situations, sometimes difficult to repair. The Provision examined by the CGJ-RS demonstrated caution regarding operations that could be harmed by concealment of assets and clandestine activities such as money laundering, hence requiring a set of evidences at the time of registration and communication to the COAF. Furthermore, the confusion between the institutes of digital property, alien to the legal system, and real property lacks its own regulation so that its effects do not result in an unequal legal relationship. More legal guidelines that prevent these occurrences are welcome, as long they do not stifle both the market and innovation.