Da Lei de Terras à REURB: trajetória jurídica da regularização fundiária e a função social da propriedade

Abstract

This dissertation examined the legal trajectory of land regularization in Brazil, from the 1850 Land Law (Lei de Terras) to the Urban Land Regularization system (REURB) established by Federal Law No. 13.465/2017, with an emphasis on the period from 1979 to 2025. The main objective was to assess to what extent the recent statutory and case-law framework, especially after 2016, has contributed to the realization of the right to housing, the right to the city and the socio-environmental function of property. The research adopted a qualitative, dogmatic-analytical approach, based on the examination of constitutional and statutory law (Law No. 6.766/1979, the City Statute, Laws No. 11.977/2009,11.952/2009, 13.465/2017, 14.285/2021 and 14.382/2022) and of precedents of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice, in dialogue with the scholarship of Betânia Alfonsin, Edésio Fernandes and Raquel Rolnik, among others. The study reconstructed three historical moments in the regulation of urban land, systematized the theoretical framework on property, possession, the socio-environmental function, the right to the city and the right to housing, and analysed the design of REURB, its related procedures and its interfaces with environmental law and the land registration system. It concluded that the current framework combines progress in the institutionalization of land regularization and tenure security with a renewed emphasis on a registral-dominial model and with persistent tensions between environmental protection, urban inclusion and market-oriented dynamics.