The Caixa strike is over: what should developers do now?

The Caixa strike is over. Are mortgage payouts back to normal?

Not right away. Brazil's Superior Labor Court (TST) ordered the end of the nationwide strike of Caixa Econômica Federal employees on September 29, 2026. The strike had started on September 10, and branches resumed normal operations on September 30, according to g1. The rapporteur, Justice Maurício Godinho Delgado, declined to declare the strike abusive but ordered work to resume.

What the ruling ends is the stoppage, not the queue. A home loan is a sequence of steps, and each stalled file restarts from wherever it stopped. As Alberto Friggi, CEO of Friggi & Secco, told Veja: "The strike may end on a given day, but the impact on the real estate market may continue to be felt for a few weeks until the whole chain gets back to its normal pace."

In practice, a completed credit review leads to a signing; the signed contract goes to the Real Estate Registry Office; the registration returns to the bank for review; and only then are the funds released. Stalled files don't reach all of these stages at the same time, which is why normalization is staggered.

How big was the backlog?

There is no official final figure, but estimates give a sense of scale. Caixa accounts for almost 70% of home loans in Brazil, according to UOL. Based on 511,000 home loans in the first half of the year (an average of 4,089 per business day), the outlet estimated that 13 business days of strike would have left 49,066 contracts unsigned. It is a projection from the average pace, not a count of stalled contracts.

Dependence is greatest in the affordable segment. An XP report cited by O Globo (analysts Ygor Altero and João Rodrigues) shows that Minha Casa, Minha Vida, the federal housing program run mainly through Caixa, accounted for 58% of launches and 51% of the sector's sales between April and June. In the mid and high-end segments buyers have more banks to choose from, but switching banks mid-process isn't automatic: each institution has its own onboarding and procedures, as the president of São Paulo's realtors council (Creci-SP), José Augusto Viana Neto, told Veja.

Where does the delay hit the developer's cash flow?

In two places: the payout of buyers' mortgages and the release of construction funds. Celso Petrucci, economics director at Secovi-SP, told O Globo that "the release of funds has fallen off its normal schedule and dates are delayed, and this directly affects projects under construction." He also pointed to the construction measurement, the step in which the bank checks physical progress before releasing money: "The developer plans in its cash flow what it expects to receive from Caixa."

Rafael Thomé, president of Secovi-Rio, summed up the chain: "Documents expire, the risk of buyers walking away and of contractual penalties grows, and developers feel it in their cash when the payout is delayed." Clausens Duarte, vice president for Social Housing at the Brazilian Chamber of the Construction Industry (CBIC), added that the delays affect cash flow "especially of smaller companies."

Scale makes it worse. A developer may have dozens or hundreds of units in the payout stage at once, Veja notes; when these operations are delayed, receivables grow and funds already expected in the cash plan are postponed, according to André Luiz Haas Caruso, CEO of Pilar Capital. Tenda, in a filing cited by Money Times, described the impact as payouts shifting between months, which should not affect "the year's cash flow if it ends soon." The same company, however, mentioned purging contracts that don't meet payout criteria, which "may result in a one-off increase in cancellations."

Which certificates may have expired during the strike?

Short-validity ones, especially those about the property. The strike lasted almost three weeks, and a certificate issued in early September may have lapsed while the file waited. The most commonly used official references:

One caveat: the checklist cited is the one Caixa publishes for contracting development projects, and each payout has its own file. Before reissuing (and paying for) any certificate, check in the file what is actually pending, as Publicidade Imobiliária advises: not every buyer will need to redo their paperwork. To understand why an up-to-date title certificate is the core document, see the title certificate: the document that prevents fraud.

Is the deadline agreed with the buyer suspended because of the strike?

Not automatically. Experts interviewed by Exame say no rule suspends contractual deadlines because of the strike; one must read the contract and identify who caused the delay.

Courts have been separating what is agreed with the bank from what is promised to the buyer. In Blumenau, the 2nd Civil Court ordered a developer to pay R$ 11,000 in moral damages for an 11-month delay in delivering a Minha Casa, Minha Vida unit. The court rejected the argument that the financing contract with Caixa had set a new construction schedule, because the financing does not change the deadline in the purchase agreement, according to Santa Catarina em Pauta. The decision can still be appealed.

Construction-phase interest follows the same logic. Brazil's Superior Court of Justice (STJ) held in Repetitive Theme 996 that charging it after the key-delivery deadline, grace period included, is unlawful. In a more recent decision, the Fourth Panel found the charge improper after the occupancy permit when delivery and the start of amortization were delayed by obstacles attributed to the builder, according to Exame. Whether a bank strike shifts responsibility away from the developer is a question these rulings don't answer; each case will turn on the contract and on evidence of who caused the delay. That is why documenting every step matters.

What should developers do in the coming weeks?

Treat the backlog as a project, with a mapped portfolio and proof of each step:

1. Map the portfolio by stage. Separate contracts awaiting review, signing, registration or release, since each group has a different next step.
2. Prioritize files close to the finish line. Signed contracts or those in registration release cash faster and have certificates closer to expiring.
3. Check validity before reissuing. Confirm in the file which certificates have lapsed; don't redo everything as a precaution.
4. Formalize with the buyer. Report progress in writing and, if a deadline is extended, record it in an addendum, as the experts interviewed by Exame recommend.
5. Keep the evidence. Protocols, emails and service records from the strike period show at which stage the delay occurred.
6. Reschedule pending construction measurements to unlock the release of project funds.
7. Watch the cancellation risk in contracts that may not pass credit criteria, the signal Tenda flagged to the market.

If a unit's financing still depends on the project's documentation, it is also worth reviewing the three documents without which a unit sale doesn't move. And, to set the buyer's expectations, why financing doesn't come with a separate deed: the bank contract goes straight to registration.

Where Ristra comes in

Ristra is the digital concierge and real estate paperwork service that runs the post-sale process through to registration: it pulls and updates certificates, organizes the buyer's and unit's file, tracks the filing at the registry office and keeps the buyer informed without them having to ask. In a backlog like this one, that work is what separates a payout that resumes from one that stalls again over an expired document. For the developer, it shortens the path between a signed sale and cash in hand. See how it works for developers or talk to Ristra.

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