Golfingworld,
It is interesting to hear about your comments on ''Due Diligence''. I completely understand where you are coming from and agree that when investing in foreign countries you should always act with caution (not every body is as honest as you are).
I would like to put my suggestions forward to you for consideration. However, my interests do not lay in Brazil but are with German property investment, which I suspect will be of a different rental market to what you are looking at (therefore not everything I talk about will necessarily hold true to Brazil). I do believe that the principles of property investment remain pretty much the same.
My view to purchasing property is that you need to conduct your own search this taking the form of 3 basic steps. (This is possibly what people refer to as DD).
1) Research the area you want to invest in. What is its potential.
2) What type of property do you want to purchase. What is your rental market.
3) Evaluate your financial costs to ensure its a viable investment.
These are only the basic steps, you will need to carry out further research to fully appreciate if your chosen investment is suitable. This can all be done by yourself on the net.
Once you feel comfortable from your research that your chosen area is good for investment, then you need to find a suitable property. When you have found a suitable property I would then suggest finding a lawyer to conduct your conveyancing.
I consider it very important to appoint your own lawyer as any lawyer employed by a broker will always share an interest with the broker (the lawyer will not act solely on your interests). Also any Notar involved will not conduct any conveyancing, they are employed only to oversee the sale of contact on a property between buyer and seller. (Not sure if the Notar process follows the same in Brazil).
I have posted comments about what you are talking about on another thread German Property - Buying in Germany. This may be of interest as I believe this is what you are trying to get a grasp of. I make reference to DD but having read this thread about DD, I have interpreted DD as the prospective purchasers research and what I initially referred to as DD in my thread would be conveyancing.
I think I am on the same wave length as you and hope this helps.
Good luck
Reindeer.
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