I have to say that my law firm is being VERY unhelpful to me regarding the biometrics appointments. They refuse to even check whether there is a way to set up a separate ARI login for me, so that I can search for cancellations in the middle of the night (Portugal time), as many on this forum report doing. They did not inform me that SEF opened the calendar on November 24. I wonder if they even tried!
My law firm (I will not name them) seems to have a very good name, but perhaps for this reason they have become too successful in attracting new clients, so that their service to their older clients has been diluted beyond acceptability.
I am ready to search for a new lawyer. Does anyone here know of a lawyer or law firm which is particularly aggressive in seeking appointments for their clients?
As I mentioned a few threads up above, SEF donāt give a lot of heads up that they will release appointments. The recent release last week was announced on their Facebook page at about 8am without actually say when they will actually open the calendar for booking.
I was told by my lawyers that the last batch of vacancies released was only 70 appointments out of the 1400 that were announced, which would help explain why so few people were able to book one if true. Can anyone confirm whether this is consistent with what their lawyers have said?
Lots of things could be done to make things more fair. This has been discussed extensively. Clearly, none of these things are being done, so it seems fairly clear that none of these things will be done, and the status quo shall continue.
Lourenco, I think this situation simply has caught the big firms off guard. Having a bunch of interns sitting around clicking for appointments in a law firm where GV is just one part of a much bigger practice is probably just an invitation to have the partners reallocate your interns to other projects. They probably have standard practice and thatās how you do things and all of this is just a blip on the radar from their point of view. Sure they should do better for their clients, butā¦
We bought a property under GV scheme in Dec 2019, and by Feb 2020 we got the pre-approval for our application. We had an appointment for Aug 2020 but unfortunately, Covid happened and everything went for a toss. Since then we have been waiting. Our lawyers got us some appointments but due to Portugal not giving Schengen visas, we couldnāt come. Itās been a big mess.
I am wondering why Portugal canāt do biometrics in the resident countryās embassy? Why do they need us to come there and submit biometrics? Meanwhile I got the UK residency within 2 months, did all biometrics in my country itself.
Now we are playing the appointment game just like everyone else. Pathetic situation given the fact we invested thousands of euros in the country.
It is what it is and many of us have all kinds of āproposalsā on this thread and elsewhere, but doesnāt matterā¦
My personal take is they could have done ONE simple thing and not make the COVID (which PT Govāt couldnāt control) situation worse ā just delay the new GV rule changes for later or indefinitely.
Itās like your store is understaffed, has a line, and the line grew (i.e., COVID) ā but yet you still went out to advertise that āthe discounted stuff will be gone soon!ā (i.e., Lisbon/Porto and 350K funds) and made everyone panics and the line grew even longerā¦!
Frankly they should stop accepting new applications, till they get thier house in order.
Alternatively Biometrics can easily be given in local Consulates and original documents can be submitted either in the local Portuguese consulate or by lawyers in Portugal itself.
I agree with that too. Sadly even if they were going to something, itās too late. My prediction is the influx of new applications will take a pause as the rule changes in 3 weeks. We are all just so stuck (together) for a while
As someone who has bought an investment but not applied yet (hopefully in the next week), Iām glad they arenāt doing anything sudden. I hope you are right about your prediction and that the queues will be worked through in an orderly way.
Curious. What do you mean by Portugal not issuing schengen visas ? you mean during the height of pandemic. or right now ? And the consulate in which country ?
Portugal still hasnāt opened up Schengen visas in India. And even if you tell the local consulate here that you need to go for biometrics and not for tourism, they just ignore.
If I do recall right, you can travel to Portugal with just the SEF appointment itself without a Schengen visa- this is stated to me by lawyers + even our national carrier staff at the international airport is aware of this ruleā¦ I wasnāt expecting them to be aware of this rule; but then it made sense as airline staff needs to be fully aware of who can travel and who canāt, otherwise airlines pay a penaltyā¦
Iāve seen passangers flying to Lisbon and instead of a visa they were showing the SEF appointmentā¦ I suggest you to check this with lawyer.
I seriously doubt but if this is true, it is a valuable piece of information which will help a lot of people. Is there anyone here who actually travelled with a SEF appointment and without Schengen visa (although his/her nationality requires a Schengen to enter EU)?
