Hi, Micheal. I am not sure how difficult it is to get appointments with IRN (the entity that handles citizenship applications), but for citizenship, my understanding is that lawyers are allowed to submit the application online whereas private individuals need to make an appointment and submit the application in person. Regardless, I felt comfortable paying a lawyer EU 1,500 to handle my application because I am not physically in Portugal (Golden Visa), and I find it to be reassuring to have someone who can review my forms before submission (I think that it is not worth taking the risk of delays supplementing or correcting documents after submission), file the application, follow up, and be there for me if I have answer questions or need to take care of issues that may arise. I am 1 year into the process, and so far, nothing that has required the attention of the lawyer has happened. It’s not mandatory, but can have it’s advantages. One word of caution, however, is that there are some terrible lawyers out there. Make sure that you get references. My Golden Visa lawyer was awful. People in this community were more knowledgeable and helpful. My citizenship lawyer was referred to me by a close friend. So far so good, but I haven’t had enough experience with him to recommend him with confidence.
One more point, having a lawyer was helpful for me because my documents were coming in from different countries at different times. I didn’t have to worry about scheduling a trip to Portugal as all of the documents were being sent to my lawyer and I didn’t need to be in Portugal physically to submit the application. Make sure that you manage the timing of the issuance of documents. I started with documents that seemed to take long and were hard to predict when they would be issued (such as criminal records from state governments in the U.S., which by the way, often seem to have mistakes) and did the documents that are quick last just to make sure that they were all submitted within their time of validity.
My attorney is charging €1099. I plan on using an attorney and wanted to benchmark the price.
Is federal (FBI) record not sufficient? First I’ve heard about needing state records too.
I don’t know. I just did what my lawyer told me to do, and he said that for the U.S., I had to get criminal records from the FBI as well as the states in which I lived for more than 12 months.
Oh are you sure he didn’t mean states as in other countries? Like if you studied abroad for a year in Germany, you’d need to get a German record too.
I never heard that Portugal cares about sub-national police records. I thought they’re included in the national record anyway.
I am sure that that’s not what he meant. Believe me, I would have preferred just to have submitted an FBI criminal record. Getting records from the state level was extremely cumbersome. On the other hand, I am just telling you about my experience. Whether my lawyer was correct, I don’t know, but I opted to play it safe. Perhaps you should see what other applicants who lived in the US had to do…
I asked on the Portuguese Nationality FB group and two people responded they only needed FBI…
I received two quotes this month for 1500 per person and one for 2000 per person.
Hi Grant, it’s Valerie from Latitude! If you are still comparing legal costs, please look into Ana Bruno & Associados, as I believe that they have a very competitive fee structure. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to chat further 