With a theoretical-practical approach, empirically based on experience in the municipality of Juiz de Fora, in the state of Minas Gerais, through actions of land tenure regularization, this paper, in a contextualized manner, seeks to reflect on the design, process and “post-intervention” moment of the regularization of low-income urban settlements. Although it was assessed that the investigated experience failed to meet the concept of full land tenure regularization, the study was nonetheless able to identify a number of assumptions and lessons that emerged, through which it has been possible to propose some relevant guidelines in order to revise the concept and practices under discussion. Special attention has been given to the beneficiaries of the regularization process, thereby contrasting the recurrent view that they are mere "partners" with the perspective that places them rather as protagonists in the process.