Had a Zoom meeting with my lawyer tonight about sueing AIMA over the increased fees and to get my residency card issued.
For those not following along, I did biometrics in Faro April 12th this year
Iām going to sue, itāll cost 950 EUR to AGPC, no court fees, sheās extremely confident that weāll get the card issued - probably within 2 months, but up to 4-5 months if sheās being pessimistic. I expect we might get the card ānaturallyā so to speak, before the lawsuit is served to AIMA due to court backlogs, and in that case we will audible to get the fees refunded to the original level. For paying the lower fees, she says about 60% confidence itāll happen through this mechanism.
She said if after we get the first card, we want to file a larger lawsuit regarding delays and the lawyer fees, opportunity cost, etc, it would be better to take Portugal to the EU courts and it would cost in the range of 3-5k EUR.
She was noncommittal about whether we could get the start date for residency when we make our citizenship application set to the legal last day of waiting for the card, but weāll be talking more about that in the future
Got my cards finally approved after the courtā¦
SEF sent an email to my lawyers requesting a payment to be made for the cards to be issuedā¦but now AIMAās portal isnāt working and I canāt issue a document to pay for them (DUC).
Any suggestions?
P.S. my lawyers already wrote emails to SEF/AIMA regarding the issue, but maybe the community here knows some lifehacks?
Normally, DUC payment takes 24-48 hours after the SEF email requesting a payment to be made (ie the reference number is valid for payment). Has this time passed, in your case?
Wow! This seems quite reasonable, compared to other lawyerās fees Iāve seen quoted. Iām also surprise there arenāt any court fees. Keep us posted!
Ok, so when you click the little folder icon on the left, on the first line dated 27-10-2023, do you get this error message in Red?
If so, I suggest the lifehack which is emailing directly to your SEF biometrics office email (cc sef contact center email) asking them to resolve the DUC issue.
You may add the SEF IT email too, and cc your lawyers.
I havenāt updated the Lisbon final approval waitlist since 1st August because, well, almost nothingās happened. But itās only proper that we have an update to mark the approval for @tsiksssooo, who waited 26 months since the bio. Congrats.
Yeah, that is almost correct. The little icon on the left opens up another menu below, which has two options to choose from: my NIF and lawyerās NIF + a button to issue the DUC. When the button is cliced, then I get the red error message.
Theyāve already sent them a message, but I will try to send another one to the IT. @tommigun could you share ITās contacts?
We did our biometrics in Oct 22 at SEF Lisbon. So more than a year and still counting.
Our lawyer has said they are processing cases of people who did their biometrics in late August 2022.
So what to do? To sue or not to sue?
Weāve been debating the question for the last 6 months or so.
We are in a similar situation having done our Lisbon bio in late Sept 22. Iām leaning toward trying to sue as the increase in fees of around 8000 euros for the entire family for the first card should make the math work in my favor.
Are you assuming that you sue for both the residency card and the increase in fee?
I would have thought that thereās an argument the SEF/AIMA should refund the difference in the fee. If the NHR scheme is not grandfathered for existing applicants then thereās an argument they should pay the next 10 years taxes on behalf of the applicant as well.
I think you would want to sue for just the residency card and consider yourself lucky to get that. Somehow I doubt there will be much sympathy for all us billionaires trying to buy citizenship, regarding fee increases.
Iām assuming that this is sarcasm but I find it unhelpful to the overall community and it could easily be misconstrued by those who actually think that such is the case with people on this forum.
Glad to hear that you finally got approval @tsiksssooo! Do you mind me asking whether you have been asked to pay the new amount, or the old amount for your card? (Curious to see whether new amounts are being applied or old amounts honoured, according to original GV application date).
Thanks for the kind words. Thing is I havenāt been able to issue the payment document (DUC) so far, and still donāt know what amount they want me to payā¦
Iāll let the community know once things move forwards from where they are, but currently those who have been approved recently are stuck in the āin betweenā SEF/AIMA IT migration.
If someone is dense enough to believe this is a forum of billionaires who complain about a few thousand dollar fee increase and ask which lawyers are the cheapest, that is their not problem.
