For the biometrics, my lawyer only asked the birth certificate for my daughter <18 yrs old and our marriage certificate. He says he does not need birth certificate for me and my wife.
So, Formul A for my daughter and Formul B for us.
Obviously we need the non criminals to be renewed.
He did not ask for a tax document from our residence country, maybe because we live in Dubai and there is no tax number hereā¦
There are two āNo Debtā declarations required:
Just to clear up possible confusion around birth certificates.
I had a debate about this with my initial lawyer before I ditched them 
The birth certificates are only required to prove the relation between the main applicant and their dependants, as follows:
There could be other less common scenarios e.g. adopted children but the logic remains the same.
My lawyer said āyesā, so I managed to do all of the above:
Funnily enough, none of that was needed as my PT-based lawyer in parallel did their own certification and translation of the primary non-apostilled copy (I guess as a backup option). They submitted that version and it appears to have been accepted by SEF just fine.
I guess this double-effort could be avoided in a less time-stressed scenario. I had only 7(!) working days from the booking to the appointment to refresh ALL of my documents in 4 countries.
Same for me. I only provided scanned copy of Certificate of Tax Residency from the revenue office of my country, with my tax ID shows like AXXXXX123A.
How recent does the Certificate of Tax Residency need to be please?
My lawyer did not request for a new Cert of Tax Residency for biometric appointment. I guess she either used the old Cert or just submitted notarized copy of my ID card (ID number is my tax ID number as well).
It is not specified in the SEF requirements.
My original Tax ID paper does not have a date on it as such.
So my lawyer ārefreshedā it before the biometrics by making a certified copy and re-doing the translation.
My lower did not request āCertificate of Tax residencyā, nor did I provide it for pre-approval. Is this needed for dependents too? Did everyone provide it?
It is a mandatory document required from the GV main applicant only:
ā¢ Supporting evidence of the tax identification number, or equivalent, of the country of origin,
residence or tax residence;
Ā· Comprovativo do nĆŗmero de identificaĆ§Ć£o fiscal, ou equivalente, do paĆs de origem, de
residĆŖncia ou de residĆŖncia fiscal;
Ah I see. I think I provided my social Security Card. Iām in US
For Brits, the consensus seems to be the letter that can be downloaded from the HMRC website that shows oneās National Insurance number, duly apostilled
What about Canadians? Did anyone certify the āConfirmation of SINā letter you get from Service Canada?
In India, we have a Permanent Account Number (or PAN for short) which is used for all financial transactions. It is the size of a credit card and is a one-time affair. Do I just need a copy of the card? Or should it be corroborated with a copy of my latest Tax returns
My lawyer requested that I bring the original U.S. SSN card to the SEF appointment and have asked for a PDF copy for her file. It is probably a good idea to have your PAN card with you. You might want to send a copy to your lawyer ahead of the appointment for review and/or translation if necessary.
Sorry to hear about your experience. I can confirm what others have said. Our lawyer has been very upfront about the validity of the documents and this does seem to be a case of your lawyer messing this up.
Thanks Elle, this is really appreciated. I think my lawyer has pretty much taken all these steps and hopefully we can hear back from SEF soon, fingers crossed.
Cheers
Our lawyer and consultant have both been very clear that these documents have a limited validity and we need to new ones whenever we are called for the Biometrics/ get approval.
Ok, good luck. Hope SEF gets back to you/your lawyerā¦. soon. If it is at all possible, say you donāt hear anything back, you might nevertheless try all turning up to the main applicant appointment anyway, bringing everyoneās documents with you, and see if your lawyer could try to get you all sorted there and then? Donāt know what your lawyer would think of that idea. But it might be worth a try if youāre all able to there.
@fairhsa
Sorry to hear about your situation. As stated above, your lawyer messed things up. We have always provided recent criminal records to SEF in Lisbon, our lawyer emphasized the importance of this several times.