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Growth of wills in notary offices highlights concern with document fraud, property disputes, and impacts on family businesses that rely on warehouses, productive areas, equipment, and contracts to keep operations running.
The increase in demand for formal registrations in notary offices has highlighted the risk of private documents used in asset disputes after the death of partners, founders, or members of business families.
According to data released by notarial sector entities, the registered wills in the country grew by 22% in 2024, a movement associated by notaries with the search for asset organization and reduction of conflicts involving family assets.
In 2025, the volume remained high, with 38,740 acts formalized in Notary Offices, the highest number ever reported by the Notarial College of Brazil in surveys released by the sector.
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The concern of the notary offices involves situations where private documents appear after death to alter the allocation of properties, corporate shares, financial values, and assets used directly or indirectly in business activity.
In family businesses in the energy, industry, logistics, infrastructure, and mining sectors, an asset dispute can go beyond the domestic environment and affect essential operation assets, such as productive areas, warehouses, machines, guarantees, and contracts.
Document fraud can affect assets used in operation
The risk pointed out by notaries is related to the use of documents attributed to a deceased person to try to redirect assets, alter the asset division, or interfere in the control of assets linked to business families.
The attempt may involve operational properties, accounts, financial applications, equipment, company shares, and other valuable assets, especially when the founder’s personal assets mix with the structure used by the productive activity.
In these cases, the authenticity of the document needs to be discussed in a formal dispute, which can delay internal decisions, increase costs, and prolong the administration of assets while the situation is not clarified.
The investigation usually involves signature analysis, locating witnesses, verifying the circumstances in which the document was signed, and questioning possible pressure, forgery, or content alteration.
Without centralized registration, doubts about the origin, date, and integrity of the document increase, especially when family members, partners, or administrators claim to be unaware of that manifestation during the deceased person’s life.
Family businesses may face operational uncertainty
In family businesses related to energy, heavy industry, logistics, infrastructure, and mining, the absence of asset organization can create uncertainty about who is responsible for areas, equipment, guarantees, and administrative decisions after the death of a key person.
When the allocation of these assets is not clearly documented, disputes among family members can affect negotiations with suppliers, contract renewals, access to internal documents, and the continuity of decisions related to operational routine.
In the energy-industrial sector, this type of impasse can involve assets that support supply contracts, leased areas, machinery, physical facilities, vehicles, storage structures, and assets used as guarantees in commercial operations.
Governance and estate planning specialists recommend that family businesses maintain updated records on corporate control, administrative powers, assets linked to the operation, and documents related to estate transition in case of death.
Registry in notary reduces doubts about the document’s origin
The public will is made in a Notary Office, with the direct participation of a notary, the presence of two witnesses, and a formal reading of the content, a procedure used to record the declared will of the person.
This dynamic helps demonstrate that the testator presented their decision freely and consciously, without relying solely on a paper kept at home or later delivered by someone interested in the asset division.
The notary’s role gives public faith to the act, an expression used by notaries to indicate that the document is presumed authentic and becomes part of the records maintained by the service.
According to notarial entities’ guidance, this format makes it difficult for later claims of forgery, loss, alteration, or unawareness of the document’s existence by family members, partners, or people involved in asset management.
In addition to being filed at the notary, the existence of the act is communicated to the Central Notarial of Shared Electronic Services, through the Central Registry of Online Wills, a national system used to locate such documents.
With this registration, family members and those responsible for asset organization can verify if the deceased left a public will or an instrument approved at a notary, even without knowing in which unit the document was produced.
Private will increases questions after death
The main limitation pointed out by experts for the private will is the need for subsequent confirmation, as the document may require additional verification to be accepted in the division of assets.
After death, witnesses may be called to recognize the signature, content, and circumstances in which the will was declared, especially when a family member or interested party questions the origin or integrity of the document.
When a witness dies, changes address, or does not remember the act, validation can become more difficult, as confirmation depends on people who witnessed the signing of the will.
In estates linked to family businesses, this delay can create practical effects on the management of properties, machinery, contracts, corporate shares, and assets used in the operation of productive units.
Notaries recommend additional attention when there is financial dependency, social isolation, health problems, or excessive trust in third parties, situations that can increase the risk of signing documents without full understanding of the patrimonial effects.
Sudden changes in estate planning, broad powers of attorney, estrangement from close family members, and unusual transactions involving properties are also cited as warning signs, without treating these indications, in isolation, as proof of fraud.
Asset governance helps protect contracts and assets
Estate planning is not limited to families with a large volume of assets, according to notarial sector representatives, as it can also organize the allocation of properties, equipment, and shares linked to family businesses.
Among the situations cited by experts are companies founded by relatives, warehouses registered in the names of individuals, land used in operations, financed machinery, and contracts that depend on the continuity of family management.
It is also possible to alter or revoke a will while the person is alive and capable of expressing their will, a characteristic that allows the document to be adapted to patrimonial, business, and family changes over time.
This adjustment can occur after the acquisition of new assets, the entry or exit of partners, business reorganization, deaths, separations, or other significant transformations to the patrimonial structure of a business family.
Even so, the document does not eliminate all discussions, as family members or interested parties may question capacity, undue pressure, or disrespect for applicable limits in certain situations of asset division.
The difference, according to notarial entities, is that the public document usually offers a more consistent documentary basis, as it was produced with formal monitoring, archived in a notary office, and can be located through a national registry.
Document organization begins before succession
Before formalizing the allocation of assets, the interested party should gather information about properties, companies, debts, guarantees, contracts, family members, and personal obligations, as this data helps to construct a clearer document.
With this information, the notary can guide the act within their public function, clarify doubts about the document format, and indicate which points need to be defined more precisely by the interested person.
In family businesses, prior organization can also involve gathering information on assets used in operations, identifying who has management powers, and updating documents related to properties, contracts, and corporate shares.
In the case of elderly individuals who participate in management or hold assets used by family businesses, notaries recommend direct service at the Notary Office and caution with intermediaries without a clear connection to the service.
When doubts arise about capacity or free will, the service may require more care in gathering information and confirming that the decision came from the interested person themselves.
The growth of wills shows that more Brazilians have started to treat the future allocation of assets as part of asset management, even in contexts marked by properties, family businesses, and concern for operational continuity.
At the same time, the warning from notaries indicates that the chosen way to register this will can influence the stability of family assets used in productive activities.
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