Title, the notary and the public registry. What actually makes a Paraguay purchase yours.

Ownership does not pass when you sign a private contract or hand over a deposit. It passes in two steps. First, an escribano público (notary) drafts and authorises an escritura pública — the public deed — which records the sale in the notary's bound protocol under the public-faith powers granted by Ley 1307/87. Second, that deed is inscribed in the public real-estate registry. Without registration the deed is valid between you and the seller but void against third parties — meaning a later buyer, a creditor or an heir can outrank you.

A preliminary private agreement (the *boleto de compraventa* or reservation) is common and useful for locking price and terms, but it is not title. Treat it as a conditional contract, never as proof of ownership. Verdict: in Paraguay, signed-and-paid is not owned — registered is owned.

Until January 2026, real estate was registered at the Dirección General de los Registros Públicos (DGRP), part of the Supreme Court of Justice. As of 14 January 2026 the DGRP, the national cadastre (SNC) and the surveying department were merged into a single body: the Registro Unificado Nacional (RUN), created by Ley 7424/2025 and regulated by Decreto 5305/2026. Older guides and even some lawyers still say "DGRP" — they mean the RUN.

The point of the merger is to fix the two structural defects of the old system: legal records (who owns it) and physical records (where its boundaries are) sat in separate institutions that did not reconcile, which is how overlapping titles survived for decades. Full digital migration is scheduled to complete by end-2026, so during the transition expect some manual lookups and slower certificate turnaround. Verdict: the registry got better in 2026, but a transition year is exactly when you over-verify, not under-verify.

A real estudio de títulos is not a single certificate — it is a reconstruction of the property's legal history. On every mandate we commission, before a single guaraní moves, the study covers:

• 30-year chain of title. Every transfer back roughly three decades, confirming each prior sale was itself validly executed and registered. A break anywhere in the chain can void everything downstream.
• Liens and encumbrances. The certificado de condición de dominio lists mortgages (*hipotecas*), embargoes, easements, usufructs and judicial measures. Anything legally relevant must be registered to bind a buyer, so this certificate is your shield.
• Succession status. If the property passed through an estate, confirm the *sucesión* (probate) closed and all heirs were adjudicated. An unresolved heir is the single most common way a "clean" sale unravels later.
• Boundary / cadastral match. The cadastral certificate and survey (*mensura*) must agree with the registry description. On rural and older urban parcels they routinely do not.
• Tax and municipal status. Confirm Impuesto Inmobiliario is paid current and there are no municipal debts attaching to the parcel.

Verdict: a clean dominio certificate is necessary but not sufficient — the chain, the heirs and the boundary are where the real defects hide.

The escribano is a public officer, but in a transaction they are functionally one party's lawyer. Whoever appoints and pays the notary controls the drafting, the timing, and which certificates actually get pulled. If the seller's escribano runs the deal, the seller's interests set the pace — and a thin title study is exactly how problems get papered over.

This is the core of buy-side advisory. We appoint your escribano, instruct the title study, and read the report adversarially — looking for the heir who wasn't adjudicated, the mortgage that wasn't released, the survey that doesn't close. Paraguayan law also gives the buyer's notary a defensive tool: the certificado de dominio con reserva de prioridad (registral blocking), which freezes the property's registry status for a legal window — generally ~30 days — so the seller cannot sell it twice or encumber it between study and signing.

Verdict: the single cheapest risk-reduction in the whole purchase is appointing your own escribano. Refuse to share the seller's.

Two situations carry materially higher title risk and deserve a slower, deeper study.

Estate sales (sucesión). When a property is sold out of a deceased owner's estate, the chain depends on the probate having correctly identified and adjudicated *every* heir. Miss one — an estranged child, a second marriage, an heir abroad — and that person retains a registrable claim that can surface years later. Demand to see the closed *sucesión* file and the adjudication, not just a fresh deed. If probate is still open, the sellers may not legally own what they are selling.

Rural and large parcels. Paraguay's rural cadastre is incomplete; a national land-titling program backed by the IDB aims to lift rural cadastral mapping from near zero toward ~60% of land area — which tells you how much currently isn't mapped. The classic failure is the título superpuesto (overlapping title): two registered owners whose boundaries claim the same ground. Resolving one is a judicial process that runs three to four years. The defence is a fresh mensura by a licensed surveyor tied to GPS coordinates, reconciled against both the registry and cadastral records — never a decades-old survey taken on trust.

Verdict: on an estate sale, verify the heirs; on rural land, verify the boundary — and if either can't be cleanly verified, walk.

The escribano's fee is set by Ley 1307/87 on a tiered scale: 2% at the low end falling to 0.75% on larger declared values, plus 10% IVA on the fee. The buyer typically pays the notary. The minimum fee floor is 5 daily minimum wages (the 2026 daily minimum is Gs. 111,502).

That notary line is one item inside a total closing budget of roughly 5–6% of price, which also includes transfer tax, municipal transfer, the registry inscription fee and the judicial stamp. The fee scale runs off the declared value in the deed — under-declaring to cut the notary bill is a false economy that weakens your basis on a future sale and is its own legal risk. For the full itemised breakdown and a worked example, see our closing-costs page.

Verdict: budget the notary at ~1–1.5% all-in on a typical foreigner purchase, and never trade a lower fee for a thinner title study.

Diligence comes first, money second — in that order, always. A clean sequence on our mandates runs: agree price and terms in a conditional *boleto* with the title study as a stated condition; pull the certificado de condición de dominio and the cadastral certificate; commission the 30-year study and, for rural or older parcels, a fresh mensura; place the buyer's funds in escrow, not in the seller's hands; lodge a reserva de prioridad to freeze the registry; sign the escritura pública before *your* escribano; then inscribe at the RUN (~15–45 days). Possession and keys follow registration, not the deposit.

For how this fits the seven-step engagement end to end, see our process page. For who can buy at all — full freehold under Ley 117/91, and the 50 km border-zone rule that touches only bordering nationals — see the foreigner-ownership reference. Verdict: if anyone asks for funds before the study is done and the priority is reserved, that is the signal to stop.