Hi all,
Iād like to ask if anyone with experience in Golden Visa, if my funds are coming into Portugal from individuals other than myself (for example my parents or spouse), will this information be a part of the bank declaration needed for the Golden Visa? Will it affect the Golden Visa if the funds are coming from a name other than my own?
Thank you in advance!
Hi @hkarensel ,
I represent a fund called Pela Terra Farmland. I can confirm that we have investors who fit the same profile as you are describing here - where the capital investment has come from family members. They will need to move the capital into your Portuguese bank account. Your lawyer can handle the rest.
I hope thatās helpful!
Alex.
Hi Alex @Alex_LW ,
Thank you for your reply.
Do you mean my family can directly wire the money into my Portuguese bank account, and when the bank issues the bank declaration it wonāt cause any issues that the money didnāt come from an account under my own name?
Would I need to prove my relationship with the family member who sent the money?
Thank you,
Karen
We have investors who have done exactly that. I am not 100% sure of the documentation they produced regarding their relationship, but it has been very straightforward.
If itās helpful I can put you in touch with a couple of lawyers who can give you exact details. Feel free to send me your email in a personal message and Iāll make an introduction.
(We donāt collect fees for introductions. It is in our interest to supply investors with experienced lawyers as it makes our work on the fund side smoother).
Alex.
Does anyone know how this bank declaration should look like for the GV purposes?
Is there a specific format/template?
I spoke with my PT bank and they simply printed out the confirmation of transfer from my account transactions.
Yes, it does show the amount and the originating bank outside Portugal, but will it satisfy SEF as a ādeclarationā? It does not have a word ādeclarationā printed on it.
This is the quote from SEF:
"Declaration of a credit institution authorised or registered in the national territory within
Bank of Portugal, attesting the effective international transfer of assets for the property acquisition <ā¦> of the amount equal to or above 500 thousand euros <ā¦>, substantiating the ARI investment"
And yes, I know I should speak with my lawyer - I did that already, he has no ideaā¦
May I know which bank this was ? I know Bison Bank provides the exact documentation required for the ARI.
Isnāt that their job to know this?
I am with Millenium BCP.
Yeah, but I feel like my lawyer is not really familiar with the whole GV thing.
One option would be to ditch them and hire another, but that would mean paying twice.
Another option is to do as much as I can myself and just use the lawyer where it cannot be avoided. So far the only āunavoidableā lawyer involvement I can think of is probably accompanying me to the SEF appointment. But even that can be done by myself if I learn a bit of Portuguese in the next few weeks/months 
wow. that really sucks. have they actually started an ARI application yet for you? guessing not at this point. It might be worth simply asking if you can get out for some sort of penalty charge or de minimis fee, so you can get a lawyer that knows what they are doing. paying someone then doing all the work yourself seems like the worst of all worlds. Iām sure that if you beat at it enough you can probably, probably cobble it all together, but that doesnāt make it a great course.
That said, no wonder youāreā¦ cynicalā¦ of lawyers.
No, luckily they have not started the ARI application yet as no documents have been gathered. So I guess I still have a fair chance to switch over to a better firm and get at least some partial refund.
Regarding the lawyers in general, in the past I have worked with some really good ones and not so good ones.
But I think what you perceive as my cynicism towards lawyers here comes from the nature of the legal matter at hand. I donāt mind at all paying good money for a legal service that would be dealing with some objects external to me, for example property conveyancing, ie where a lawyer would pretty much check and fill in everything by themselves except signing the deeds.
However what I am finding here in the GV matter is that every single step turns out to be something that I have to do myself.
E.g. obtaining my criminal check - I have to apply myself, not through the lawyer.
Apostills - same thing, I have to do it myself because I have the original documents and need to get them over to the country where they were issued for the apostills. The lawyer in Portugal or even a lawyer in my current country of residence would not be able to do it.
Bank account - again the whole procedure was on me to gather the docs for the bank, visit the branch in person, open the account etc. I donāt imagine how any lawyer would do that for me unless I give them some blanket POA to do anything and everything on my behalf, which would be in my opinion quite a bit risky and also perhaps much more costly then what I have paid anyway. E.g. I could ask the lawyer to do NIFs for ca. EUR2k which I didnāt and got them myself 10 times cheaper.
I signed a specific & scoped POA with my lawyers solely for the purpose of opening a bank account for me. I wouldnāt be keen to do a blanket POA either.
I completely do understand your point. There is a lot you have to do yourself here. As you say, there is a lot here you have to do yourself as there is no way the lawyer can do it for you. The NIF requires some form of representation, but you hardly need a 4-figure lawyer to do that, as bordr / nifonline prove. The rest, itās certainly possible to do yourself - it does seem unclear that you NEED a lawyer if all you are doing is investing in funds. The work of it hardly requires a lawyer; however, for the person/firm to actually submit the application to SEF on your behalf or manage your appointments, I can see where that person may be required to be a lawyer (I donāt know if thatās true or not).
What youāre paying for is the person/firmās experience with the process - dotting Is and crossing Ts if you will. Sadly, there are a lot of firms that sell this service at a terribly broad range of price points, with clearly completely varying levels of competenceā¦ and it not only takes a fair bit of legwork and guessing to find a good lawyer. It sounds like you lost the lottery on your first go-round. 
That sucks.
Yes, I fully agree with you that the purpose of hiring a lawyer for GV is to have them ādotting Isā and being able to advise me on the details that are left out of the official SEF guidance.
I checked two firms and picked the one who were much more responsive by phone/email and also less expensive. Ideally should have done more research but no amount of research can guarantee success, after all itās a bit of a lottery as you said.
On the other hand, the property surveyor that I found online did a great job for me, so at least I won that other lottery 
I am with Millenium BCP too. They did send me the declaration of fund transfer for both from outside PT and to the PE fund i invested.
Thanks Roger.
What did it say if you donāt mind sharing?
Did it state something like ādeclarationā and then signed / stamped by the branch?
Hi Tommy,
It is a formal declaration by MillenniumBCP. It says: the Bank, with registered address, paid up capital, tax number, declares, for the purpose of ARI, according to laws 23/2007, 102/2017, 84/2007, client name, with account number, passport number, NIF, resides at ā¦, has transferred xxx Eur from outside pt on such date.
Yeah, that really sucks - you think they seem fine but thenā¦ aigh.
I remember saying before how āthis kind of stuff should just be plug-n-chug and most any lawyer should be fine.ā Should and deserve are two words that could stand to be removed from the lexicon, I fear.
Hi Roger,
Appreciate your reply, what extent of the details are there regarding where the funds came from outside PT?
Iād like to know if the funds came from outside Portugal on a different name would itād show up in the Bank declaration. For example, did it say anything along the lines of: from Jane Doeās bank account in the US(or any other specific region where the bank is located) 123456 to John Doeās PT bank account 654321? Assuming John Doe is the main applicant hence PT account holder.
Thank you.
Hi Karen,
It stated this Person transferred this amount internationally. As i remitted from my own account, i am not sure what will happen if it is from a different person.