Wow. Things just get worse and worse for me. My renewal isn’t until May 2024, but I need the change of address immediately, or so I’m told.
I wonder if anyone here has been through what I’m about to go through. My residency card of course has my lawyer’s address. I’m moving to Portugal permanently next month. My property there will be my actual and official address. I’m shipping my household goods, and am gathering all the paperwork to be exempt from import duties: Certificado de Bagagem, changing my NIF to my apartment address, will register at the Freguesia the moment I arrive, and so on and so forth, dozens of documents. But the receiving agent who is handling the paperwork insists that if the address on my residency card doesn’t match the rest, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards and I pay an enormous import duty, or they hold my shipment, at great expense, until I present a corrected residency card.
I wonder how true this is, since all the other documentation will prove without a doubt that I’m a bonafide resident. I wonder if he’s exaggerating.
Meanwhile, a guy on a Facebook forum told me that to get the appointment for the change of address is the same hell as getting any other appointment at SEF, and once he was finally granted one, it was for five months later, then of course another 4 to 6 weeks to receive the new card. All told, it was a lengthy ordeal.
My lawyer isn’t answering my emails, and they have never been aggressive about pushing for appointments, or anything else, from SEF. I wish someone could advise me regarding the whole process of sending a household to Portugal and whether they are really so unreasonable when it comes to the matter of the residency card address.
Finally, I wonder if anyone has tried simply walking in to a SEF office to ask for such an appointment.