Iām also Dec 07 2021 applicant. My lawyers confirmed what Iāve read here. People in their office that are very early Dec applicants are getting pre-approved in the last 2 weeks. So hopefully soon.
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Same here - my lawyers mentioned the following. My lawyers are Edge International - so one of the larger GV firms with pretty good visibility.
We did see a few from the first weeks of December, although there are still some applications from November that are lagging slightly behind.
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My family is lagging behindā¦
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Hi everyone - Iām new to this forum and could do with some advice.
I can see on this thread lots of cases of GV applications being made for the main applicant, and then within a few days that many of you have then applied for your spouse and family members GVās.
Can I ask - are the applications for your spouse etc, being applied for under āfamily re-unificationā, or some other scheme?
( I ask because my lawyer is saying that we will apply for my wifeās application under family re-unification, but that we must wait until my application is pre-approved by SEF before we can make her application, which is obviously going to be many months away. So Iām confused that I can see multiple examples on this thread of applications being submitted for family members very shortly after the main application had been submitted. )
If anyone can shed any light on my lawyerās position, I would be most grateful.
This question has already been addressed and answered. Short answer - find a new lawyer.
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Thanks for the super quick response! But ā¦ Wow! Just to be clear - are you saying that all the applications are for family re-unification, and that we should be able to put my wifeās application in right now?
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When I applied back in December 2020, my spouseās application under family reunification was filed two days after my application.
I would double check with your lawyer to be sure you are understanding what they are telling you.
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Thanks RJ - I will do
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Thinking back, it may be that the main applicantās submission only needs to be āacceptedā in the SEF system in order to proceed with the family reunification application, rather than āpre-approvedā. Perhaps someone else here can comment.
That is exactly how it worked for us. My (main) application was accepted, and then my spouse and childrenās applications were submitted immediately thereafter (so about a 2 day gap).
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My Lawyer did the same mistake, applied only for me in Nov '21. I was not part of this forum then. When I joined in Feb and found in this forum that everyone else had applied for their family, I asked my lawyer to apply after a bit of discussion and convincing, he agreed but the system was down. When it reopenned in June, my wifeās police clearance and our marraige certificate was out of date ( over 6 months) so we had to re apply. Finally applied first week of July. while I got my pre approval second week of July, there is no news on theirs! Dont make my mistake.
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Our experience was the same as Lauraās. Definitely push back on your lawyer.
This all sounds very different than my experience. I first applied in 2018, before you could so anything online, so perhaps the process has changed. I was the applicant, my wife applied as a Dependent. I donāt remember any mention of Family Reunion visa (unless they are indeed the same thing). All along her visa has been referred to as Dependent, and thatās what it says on the back of her residency card. Our initial applications were submitted together on the same day, our biometrics appointments were on the same day, one after the other, and we received our residency cards together in the same envelope from SEF. The exact same happened with our first renewal. Our second renewal was screwed up due to covid, but again, her renewal application was as Dependent. No mention of Family Reunion.
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Scott,
If you havenāt yet had your lawyer to submit your main application, you might want to do it yourself via SEF portal. It is very easy, and you donāt have to have all the information required at your disposal - you or your lawyer could add it later as needed. The key advantage of doing it yourself is that you will be given an access code to the SEF site and then you can monitor your progress alongside of your lawyer. As you might have read in this forum, it is often very frustrating to many to be completely isolated from the SEF site and having to rely solely on a lawyer for any updates, additional requests, status changes, etc.
This is what I have done: I first filled out application with just few key fields (like name, address, nationality, etc.) and marked the type of investment I was pursuing (in my case, 500K ā¬ real estate investment). The system then listed for me the required documents to submit in substantiation of my application. I ātrickledā in whatever I had later (like 2 - 3 months down the road). Then I added my lawyerās e-mail and passed the login information to her. She in turn has completed the missing documents, and finished the submission.
As soon as my application was accepted, my wife was added as Family Member of my household (conjuge - spouse).
Here is link to SEF site: https://ari.sef.pt/account/default.aspx
It is available both in Portuguese and English.
Good luck!
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Just a comment on PCERomanās note re: being able to get on SEF portal and see progress. I was able to just open an account and put in my lawyerās email. I did not put in or submit anything and I can now go look any time for progress. No need to bother my lawyer who doesnāt have any information anyway.
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applied on 29/11/2021. today my application status changed to " Application accepted" . Does that mean I got pre approved?
The ābook an appointmentā option is now active , but no calendar available ? what is the next step?
your help is much appreciated
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This does signify pre-approved. Your lawyer will likely get confirmation unless you have sole access. Yes, although the calendar can be clicked on, the drop-down options are not active for dates/times. So there is a wait for the calendar to become active. Hasnāt happened for at least 7 months, unfortunately.
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We got our pre-approvals today!
- Application submitted: Dec 4, 2021 (Main Applicant); Dec 6, 2021 (Dependant)
- Pre-approval received: Sept 21, 2022.
- Both the main applicant and dependent were approved on the same day.
Good luck everyone else with your progress!
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Hell yeah, Grats!
Only a few days to me, hopefully 
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