When buying a house in Macao, as long as the buyer and the seller sign a "notarial deed for sale and purchase of immovable property" (commonly known as "deed") in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Code, the ownership of the unit will be transferred from the seller to the buyer.
However, the main purpose of property registration is to disclose the legal status of the property (including the name of the owner, bank loan information, and whether there is any litigation, attachment or seizure, etc.) and to ensure the security of the real estate transaction. If the purchaser does not register the property after acquiring the flat and the latest ownership status of the flat is not made public, it means that any person who applies for the "house inspection paper" of the flat will only know that the owner is the vendor (i.e. the former owner). If the purchaser resells or lets out the flat in the future, the other party may not be able to confirm who the real owner is.
According to sections 4 and 5 of the Property Registration Code, a registrable fact may be asserted between the parties or their heirs even if it has not been registered, but will not be effective against third parties.
This means that although the transfer of title is not affected by the registration of the buyer and the seller, the transfer of title will occur for a third party because it is not reasonable to know the exact status of the title, and if the original vendor resells the property to another person, there will be more than one house to sell.
In such a case, in accordance with article 6 of the same Code, the right to register first takes precedence over the right to register later.
That is, if the new purchaser registers the property one step ahead of the original purchaser, the information in the property registration will legally show that the title belongs to the new purchaser, and the rights of the original purchaser will not be protected, and there is a high risk that the title of the unit will be lost due to the failure to register the property.
Therefore, in addition to "signing the deed" to buy a house, it is also very important to go through the property registration.