Ultimately, we are being told a bank account cannot be created in time given the law change and we need to use NSM Lawyers’ bank account as escrow. Our bank is rightfully skeptical and we truly have no way to prove NSM is a real law firm or that the investment property exists (we live in the U.S.).
The agreements we were provided by NSM were frankly rather bare bones and unsophisticated compared real estate/refurbishment contracts in the U.S., but that is not necessarily a reason to be skeptical on its own.
All that being said, is anyone else here engaged with NSM or the Greenview Project? Would love some information and reassurance so we can make a strong argument to the bank to move forward.
NSM is legit (nsmadvogados.pt) but I would suggest that hurrying into something you are uncomfortable about based on advice from the internet is just a really bad idea in any event.
I am also looking to work with GCS, and I am also very interested in the Green View building in Covilha. Have you decided to purchase a unit from Green View? Can I dm you for some questions? Thanks a lot!
I had a brief look at Green View when we were looking and was introduced to the developer. He was helpful but we decided to say by the coast so didn’t pursue it.
I do not have experience with your project. I do have experience with the law firm of Nuno Sousa Moniz in Lisbon, which goes by “NSM”. If that is the firm you mean, then I can say I have used them for my GV application process. They did a good job, though there was one “miss” in the application process that required us to submit one supplemental document after our biometrics appointment. I honestly can’t speak to their other capabilities, because we invested in a VC fund, not real estate. I hope this helps!
I’m two years into the process, using GCS as my agency, though I’ll note that I have no idea about Greenview/Verge as I’m a 2021 applicant. My experiences with GCS have been mostly adequate, but definitely be prepared to do your own research and chase down responses. They were very informative when selecting from investment funds, organising the opening of a bank account, etc, so top marks early in the process.
Now that we’re a ways in, unfortunately my lawyer there has become very non communicative and will basically only give you any information or updates if you repeatedly chase her down for answers, which can be frustrating. We’ve also been given conflicting information on more than one occasion regarding the documents we needed to provide, which ultimately slowed down our biometrics and family reunification processes. It’s ultimately fallen on us to struggle through SEF regulations to figure out what she actually wants, and in one case upload the documents directly to the ARI portal myself. So, certainly not the case that we feel like it’s being handled super well now, but it’s a bit late in the process to try to change attorneys.
On a whole I am not sure if I would recommend them to you. I wouldn’t say there are enough red flags to recommend avoiding them, but I wouldn’t exactly give them a glowing review, at least not in the later stages of the process.
Thanks for the information. We had some initial discussions with GCS as we just started and like you, the engagement was fantastic. We were worried that would drop off as the person we were talking to wasn’t going to be the person handling our case after we signed on. We wound up using others but this is good validation of our concern. Hope it gets better after this rush is done.
Not really. We were able to confirm through third party counsel we hired that the project and developer were real, but that’s about it. We went ahead with it, recieved our deed, and our application was submitted a bit over a month ago. I’m not convinced the unit will ever sell for what we paid, but the goal here is not to make money, as nice as that would be.
We did find a way to expedite forming a bank account, so we did not have to use NSM as escrow. It was a bit odd both GCS and NSM were not able to offer getting such an account quickly but a small indpedent attorney was able to.
There were many bumps along the way, pretty much at every step, but since the deed was executed things have been smooth so far with the application and GCS has been thourough as far as I can tell, notifying us of each development and giving us login credentialsto SEF to monitor the application.
Much of this is being done through faith as we havent put boots on the ground yet, but we have 3 sets attorneys and corroborated info from this website and other sources, so fingers crossed.