“if you want to reside and work in portugal” was the first part of my post.
To give an insight why applied for GV despite residing in PT…
Back in 2021 the GV seemed a better long term bet, I don’t know what my life will be like in 3/5 years time and don’t want to be ‘locked in’ to 183 days in PT but wanted to be able to maintain tax residency in PT regardless. GV provides this.
Add to that with GV (in 2021) I could move right away, paperwork is relatively straightforward ( for UK). There is no friction or cost on capital transfer (unlike real estate) and I don’t need to prove income etc.
With hindsight a ‘quick’ D7 followed by a GV application might have been a good fit. As it is I can pull my GV application at any time & move to D7 then reapply.
So there are ‘edge’ cases where GV makes sense even for residents.
I understand,for the freedom of selecting
GV also makes sense where e.g. the primary applicant happily resides in PT, but one or more of their dependants has other plans 
While they’re all on GV they are still progressing towards PR/citizenship.
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re: Date of Application vs Date of DUC
Our lawyer submitted the applications for my wife and I on 27 Dec 2021. I received pre-approval on 30 May 2023, and had my Biometrics appt on 25 Aug 2023. However my wife has not even received her pre-approval yet.
My DUC is dated 27 Dec 2021, but my wife’s DUC is dated 10 Aug 2022. My understanding is that the spouse’s DUC should have been paid a few days after the initial applicant.
Two questions:
-
Is the pre-approval date based on the date of the submission of the application? Or is it based on the date of the payment of the DUC?
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Is there any reason why a lawyer could not pay a spouses DUC immediately after the main applicants payment?
- It would be the latter as your application is not “Under Analysis” until the DUC is paid
- No good reason I can think of.
Kinda sounds like your lawyer screwed up and now your spouse is still (probably many) months from pre approval. (SEF is still processing December 2021 applications, I assume your wife’s application date would be Aug 2022)
Maybe they needed to wait until the primary application was paid and Under Analysis before paying for the spouse? If that took a few days, it would be a holiday and then SEF didnt take (m)any applications until June 2022. Possible your lawyer forgot about it until August…
Well, my lawyer specifically told me in March 2023:
“At this point, we can only issue your SEF DUC payment. Which was paid. Only when SEF has got back to us with your application can we then issue the DUC’s for your family”
My application is still under analysis. Kids and husband are submitted but duc not paid.
Pretty sure this is not correct. My dependents’ applications were submitted and paid for within the couple of months after mine. We were all approved on the same date.
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Same, both my (primary) application and my wife as my dependent were submitted and paid for within a few days of each other, and we were preapproved together a year later
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@Beanieskis and @garrett, were you able to get SEF appointments for biometrics for your entire family at the same time? We were warned we could have separate appointments requiring several trips to Portugal.
Yes, when the appointments opened our lawyers were able to schedule for both of us at the same time
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Maybe it’s different now that we are on the slow boat to nowhere and there are all these delays just built in? It seems like anyone who applied during the 2021 glut (or god forbid in 2022 or 2023) is on a 10-year timetable with different steps, such as delayed DUC payments for spouse and children. I will ask my lawyer specifically why we can’t pay the DUC now, mention that it was done before, maybe they will know if something did change. I can see the rationale — maybe they don’t want to waste processing kids and spouse until they know for sure main application is pre-approved.
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Seems like SEF is still on summer break 
When was the last pre-approval again?
No. My husband, son and I were invited to biometrics first. We applied on 31st Oct and about 10th Nov 2021 respectively and were invited in late Dec 22 to attend biometrics in Feb 23. My daughter who applied in late Jan 22, was invited for biometrics in July 23 and did them last week. We were all pre-approved in May 22.
As it turned out my husband couldn’t make his original biometric appointment, but he was able to do them with our daughter last week.
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Last one announced here 6 days ago…
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Just curious if anyone (i.e. primary) applied and paid after December 20, 2021, and spouse applied/paid January 20, 2022, have finished biometrics over 4 months ago and dependant still has not received pre-approval?
Wondering if I need to contact my attorney or this is normal for dependant awaiting pre-approval 6 months after primary/spouse pre-approval (i.e. 02.28.23).
I think this is the kind of case where legal input and potentially filing a case might be useful. As your permit dates are going to be massively out of sync, and there’s a good argument that’s pretty unreasonable.
I applied in Oct 21 and my daughter not until 27 Jan 22. She was approved same say as me in May 22.
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Thank you, @Beanieskis Selina :<) Congratulations to you and your family.
I was in the glut December '21 and trying to ascertain if that’s the issue. Fortunately, I was invited for biometrics late March, completed in Portimão mid-April, '23.
My husband thinks it’s because our last names are different…who knows at this point?!
I appreciate your suggestion and have emailed my attorney who is out until 3, September.
applied on 27 dec 2021. family in dec 2022 with payment for one member in jan 2023.
still nothing.