Thanks for the message. Unfortunately my husbandâs appointment was in Feb 23. There was no way on earth he could make it - he is a pilot and he had his recurrent sim check (needed to legally remain a pilot), a 15 hour flight away, about 14 hours before the appointment time. In the weeks leading up to the appointment our lawyers informed SEF of this and were trying to get them to let our baby (pre-approved the same date as us, but application submitted about 6 weeks after us as she wasnât born when we submitted our apps) take his appointment slot as she had to go with me (mine and my sonâs appointments were at the same time) so that we didnât all have to fly back again at a separate time as clearly a baby canât go alone, and they were trying to reschedule his appointment. My lawyers advised me to take all docs needed for our baby which we did, in the hope they would make a decision on the day. They could not - the SEF officer would have done the babyâs biometrics, but said she had nowhere to save my babyâs biometrics as their IT system hadnât created an appointment for her.
I donât think itâs the case that the main applicant gets processed first - Iâm the main applicant, and my son, baby and husband are family members. My application was submitted about a week before my husband and sonâs and 6 weeks before my babyâs. We were all pre-approved on the same date. My son, husband and I were invited for biometrics in the December batch, my baby has not yet been invited.
We have a call with our lawyer this week to discuss a case and if they arenât interested in going down that route we will change lawyers.
If anyone has any recommendations for lawyers whoâve filed successful cases against SEF please let me know.
I truly appreciate the detailed explanation as I thought only one âNo Tax Debtâ document was needed.; completely unaware of the âNo Social Securityâ debt.
I agree with your comment that the attorney must have booked earliest available for Lisbon.
With regard to asking the attorney to rebook at a different location, I almost do not want to bother them with another request as I know they are quite busy and unfortunately, I am not in Lisbon. If I was aware of this, I would have gone to the local office in PortimĂŁo while there for my biometrics.
Dumb question: Do you think itâs a major issue that my case is sitting idle, awaiting this last document, as the attorneyâs rep told me it was not an issue and quite common. HmmmâŠ
Curious if anyone else on the forum experienced this and could comment on the time involved once the document was received by SEF, to the request for payment, followed by receipt of card.
My FBI report was still waiting for apostille when I did biometrics. The lawyers mailed it to SEF a few weeks later. I still got approved. Maybe it delayed things slightly, no way to tell.
I was in the exact same situation as yours: âNo Social Security Declarationâ was not available when attending my bio appointment. My lawyer submitted approximately a week later.
My application is being reviewed at this moment (SEF asked for some updated bank declaration last week), in line with the timeline of others who attended bio appointments at similar time at SEF Lisbon.
Hi @rogergan68, was the updated bank declaration simply a letter to confirm the balance or something else? My bank charged EUR200 for this declaration at the time of submission of the application, so wondering if many of these documents have to be refreshed, it easily turns in to hundreds of euros of cost again!
Thank you @rogergan68!
I had no idea this was an additional document requirement, but will definitely follow-up with my attorney.
The bank declaration is news to me, as well, but thanks to you and others here, I have a heads-up!
Thanks @rogergan68, in my case Iâve invested in a âŹ280k option with âŹ250k having been paid and the remaining âŹ30k still in my PT bank for renovations, to be paid once the renovation starts. My lawyer submitted a declaration from the bank of both transfer of funds into the account, the payment and a balance to cover the renovation. Iâm guessing SEF will want a refresh of these docs again at that time, only if to confirm that the balance contains the funds for renovations (or if my biometrics falls after the renovation has started, that the funds have been paid).
I was told by my lawyer that no biometric appointment invite was received for my case which was pre approved in Jul 22 - any suggestion for next steps? Can I be added to the ARI portal when it sends out appointment invite, is suing SEF an option and how else should I make sure I get an invite soon?
Nope! I have plenty of stamps from Germany, Netherlands, Croatia, Bosnia, Italy, and, of course, Portugal in my U.S. passport. All others are clear, but the only consistently-faint ones are indeed from Portugal.
You might be able to just book an appointment (or your lawyer book one) next time they open. Iâd get a lawsuit ready just in case and if you canât, sue immediately
Hello Chris, everyone,
My wife and I had our application ready in Feb 2022, but could not submit it as the system was not taking any new applications between Jan 2022 and June 2022. So we ended up submitting our application in June 2022. Knowing that most of those who submitted their application in Dec 2021 were notified in March 2023, we are hoping to get our pre-approval soon!
Q1: Have you heard of any pre-approvals lately? Or was the March 28 communication the latest that you heard of?
On another note, being in Dubai, we are finding difficulty in getting an appointment to apply for a Schengen visa. We might not have a valid Schengen visa to travel to Portugal between June 2023 and August 2023.
Q2: Based on the latest pre-approval announcements and their respective biometrics appointment windows⊠We are worried of being asked to travel when our Schengen visa is not valid. Do you think SEF gives more than 2 months time?
Sorry for the delay - but just a quick update to say that my re-scheduled (due to strike three weeks earlier) Biometrics appointment did go ahead on 27 April!
I fully intended to grill my lawyer on exactly what had happened to obtain the replacement appointment. Had she somehow caused it to occur, or had it come âout of the blueâ?
Unfortunately, my lawyer said she would meet me at the appointment, but she was late arriving. Luckily her PA had taken me to the appointment and had all the paperwork with her so she was able to start the SEF meeting without her. ( I did feel sorry for the poor PA. She hadnât ever been to the SEF office before - let alone engage in the appointment apparently!).
After the appointment, the lawyer had to leave quickly, as it sounded like she had parked somewhere where she would get ticketed. So I am really sorry, but I didnât get to the bottom of what had happened to generate the new appointment, but my guess is that it was instigated by SEF, when they realised their strike would have caused some incomplete appointments on their strike days.
As far as I know, SEF were happy with the paperwork presented, but I guess we shall see as I have read plenty of stories here on NM where further documents get requested after the biometrics appointment
There are no GV appointments available. There are probably tons of non-GV appointments that they can reallocate to GV if they feel they have to, which maybe a strike warrants?
At the appointment, the SEF agent called out the names of two other people before she called mine. Of course, I donât know what type of visa they were applying for, but they were no-shows!!!
Surely not GV applicants, but it did make me wonder whether SEF are used to regular no-shows and therefore have some flexibility to fit in a few extra appointments where they need to, even though they donât seem to have any capacity in the system.
