Given the recent changes by SEF to offer appointments in chronological order based on date of preliminary approval, is it still necessary for lawyers to do this?
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That is true . Since January 12. for the GV. We also work for other SEF applicants where it is still “more open for personal effort”.
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Any idea where SEF is at with their appointment scheduling? A few posts ago, it seemed like they were scheduling appointments for those who got pre-approval in May 2021. We got our pre-approval in June 2020 but have not head anything about appointments yet.
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Have you checked if your calendar is open on the SEF portal?
It appears that SEF does not send any emails, or maybe they do but not to everyone 
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I believe Officially they are at q2 2021. But i have heard of some people in q3 2021 also.
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This thread has been very helpful, especially when dealing with lawyers who pass on little information.
Does anyone know of any source (website, news article etc) that they can point me to stating where SEF currently is in their backlog processing? Official SEF statement/source would be great, but ANYTHING would do.
We were pre-approved in March 2021 and our lawyer is telling us they have not been notified yet regarding appointment availability for our case.
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There was a SEF announcement on 12 January 2022 on the SEF facebook page: Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras
committing to appointments in chronological order for those with pre-approval in Q1 of 2021: In English the text is: “As of today, stakeholders with ARI applications (residence permit for investment activity), relating to the first quarter of 2021, will begin to be notified by the Service of Foreigners and Borders (SEF) to schedule, in a total of about 1,800 Applications. On 15 December, the SEF started scheduling in chronological order for ARI grant, having already notified about 4,200 citizens.” Since your application was in March 2021, you would be one of those applications that should have been notified. I dont see anything else that is “official” . I note that they have gone past those who were pre-approved by mid-2021… hope this helps!
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You may want to ask your lawyer to physically go in and check your account on the SEF portal, click the calendar icon and see if the selections (drop-downs) are open for scheduling.
Of course you can also do it yourself if you have access.
It appears that SEF has got some problem in sending out emails so you (or your lawyer) should not wait for one.
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Same thing with us. We were pre-approved in March 2020 (yes 2020) and SEF hasn’t contacted us, though our lawyers are constantly following up but SEF hasn’t replied to a single email since Jan.
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Since you (and Roger B) were notified of pre-approval – the application is in the SEF system. SEF notification to lawyers has been mentioned as the “norm”. However, even if an email has not been sent or received (or has been sent and missed) can your lawyers open the calendar to check whether appointments can be booked - as suggested by Tommy?? A recent post (related to pre-approvals) pointed out that no notification occurred (SEF processing time for initial application? - #55 by CTC ) but the calendar became active- ie opened up. Is the calendar live? You need to ask the lawyers to check this, if you cannot do this directly.
I hope, or would prefer to believe, that SEF are now trying everything they can to undo the harm already caused, but in your cases escalation seems necessary to bring it to their attention. Trying to contact SEF either via email/telephone seems non-productive and frustrating for those who try, unsuccessfully, even in Portuguese. Maybe your lawyers can write to one (or more) of the following persons by registered letter? conteudo-detalhe
I checked the calendar, it wasn’t “active”. I could not see the centers in the dropdown, else I would have booked myself.
Our lawyers have tried everything, they are sending repeated reminders to SEF, but have received no replies yet.
Our lawyers are Abreu Associados. Does anyone know how to contact SEF via any other means apart from emails? Apparently phones are useless and visit to their office doesn’t work.
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Hi Vivek,
my lawyers also cannot reach SEF except by calling them 1,000 attempts and eventually they can get through.
Apparently they do not respond to emails. I have heard of some lawyers that have direct contacts at SEF but that is rare case. I suspect SEF does not respond on Facebook but it is worth responding to their post about scheduling and see if they will message back. Sorry, I think the situation is bad for anyone trying to reach SEF. I feel bad because you have already waited for so long.
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Since I received preapproval in Jan 2022, I did also login to check and see if I could access the calendar to book biometrics appointments. I was unable to do so. I can access the calendar but no open dates are showing up for me or my family members. I will continue to check once a week to make sure that there is not an opening for an appointment and SEF just did not notify me. But, given the timelines people are currently seeing for scheduling biometrics, I’m not expecting calendar openings until fall or winter at the earliest.
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Hi everyone,
Wanted to find out if anyone that got pre-approval in June 2021 have been allowed to make Biometrics appointments?
Thanks!
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Not sure, I have got my Pre approval in Sept 2021 and yet to be allowed to make Biometrics appointments… Anyone else ?
Oh! Now I have found someone almost similar. I was pre-approved in March 2020 (almost 2 years ago) and since then I am waiting for biometric appointment.
The difference is I received an email from SEF on Dec 28, 2021, mentioning that they changed their scheduling policy for ARI applications, therefore if I am still wish to continue, I must make my appointment between 28-12-2021 and 02-01-2022, but still my follow ups from my lawyer received the same information that the SEF agenda remains closed.
So I completely become upset and really do not know what to do. Imagine we could invest this money somewhere else and what could be the result.
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Hi Reza,
Let me know when you get an appointment scheduled. Looks like we are in the same boat.
Vivek
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I have got my pre-approval in July 2021 and yet to be allowed to make Biometrics appointment. According to my lawyer, the latest appointment openings are for pre-approval in April 2021 and projected appointment opening (allowing to book appointment) in my case will be in summer.
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Mine too is June 2021 and no appointment openings/appointment email as of now.
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Thanks Andy. Hopefully it will be soon.
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