There is a place in Brazil where the short-term rental business is so settled that Airbnb itself runs a physical support point inside a residential building: the Copan, the concrete giant in downtown São Paulo, as shown in a Folha de S.Paulo photograph from May. In most buildings, though, the relationship is a fight: neighbours complain about strangers in the lift, building managers fine owners, and owners go to court. That whole dispute is now frozen by STJ, Brazil's Superior Court of Justice, which settles conflicting interpretations of federal law nationwide.

On Thursday (17), the court and Folha reported that the STJ's Second Section had suspended, across the entire country, individual and class-action lawsuits over whether a residential condominium may block short-term rentals on digital platforms even when the building's convention, its founding rules document, carries no express ban. The court sent the decision to all state courts and federal regional courts, according to the newspaper.

What the court will decide

The suspension follows the court's decision to handle the issue under its "repetitive appeals" procedure, a mechanism that produces one binding interpretation for all of Brazil. The designation was approved unanimously on May 26 and registered as Theme 1.443, based on two appeals, 2.272.536, from São Paulo, and 2.272.537, from Santa Catarina, both reported by Justice Raul Araújo. The question is narrow: does a clause stating the building is for residential use only suffice to bar platform rentals, or must the convention spell out an express prohibition?

Until the ruling comes, nothing changes on the merits: it neither bans nor authorises short-term rentals, and the frozen cases simply wait. Once issued, the thesis will bind judges and courts nationwide under articles 927 and 1.036 of Brazil's Civil Procedure Code, and should guide thousands of similar cases, writes lawyer Cristiano de Souza Oliveira in the legal news outlet Migalhas. No judgment date has been announced.

An earlier ruling hints at the court's direction. On May 7, the same Second Section decided, by majority, in appeal 2.121.055, reported by Justice Nancy Andrighi, that repeated, business-like short-term letting can strip a condominium of its residential character, and that allowing it requires a meeting approved by two thirds of the unit owners, under article 1.351 of the Civil Code. Airbnb's general director for South America, Fiamma Zarife, said in an interview with the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, quoted by the portal Direcional Condomínios, that the May decision applied to one case only and did not bind other courts.

Congress is working on the same question. Seasonal rentals are regulated by articles 48 to 50 of Brazil's tenancy law of 1991, but no federal law bans them in residential buildings. Bill 2.474/19 proposes banning platform-based seasonal rentals in exclusively residential condominiums unless the convention expressly allows them, and the issue was folded into bill 4/25, the Civil Code reform before the Senate, according to Migalhas. The STJ itself acknowledged, in a 2021 decision quoted by the portal, that "so far there is no legislation dealing with the rental of property located in a condominium building for short periods through apps".

What changes now

• Parties to lawsuits on the issue must wait: cases stay suspended until the ruling on Theme 1.443.
• The freeze bans nothing and authorises nothing; each building's internal rules remain in force.
• Building managers can keep notifying units based on the residential-use clause, describing concrete facts such as constant guest turnover, advises condominium lawyer Marcelo Falleiros, of Direcional Condomínios.
• To allow short-term rentals, the path indicated by the STJ in May is an owners' meeting with a two-thirds vote.