In the DIY domain…!
My lawyer suggested the same thing which I haven’t taken yet. How is suing working for you?
SEF is being replaced by another agency in October. Is it worthwhile to sue SEF anymore?
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In my opinion, there was no special interference from my lawyers. All they did was sending emails. Of course, they told me I am a lucky guy. They also have other clients still waiting for Biometric… 
Dealing with SEF is a game of being patient.
This Chinese youtuber claimed in May 26 that the Portuguese Minister of Internal Affairs wanted the SEF to process all existing residency applications (possibly including GV?) before the abolishment of SEF in October.
Can anybody verify this news? If it’s true, we might be able to get a biometric appointment soon. But maybe the minister was not referring to GV at all. Nobody in the government pays attention to the interests of the GV investors anyway.
I always assume they mean “all non-ARI applications”.
I had my D7 biometrics appointment randomly canceled by SEF in Coimbra once. They rescheduled it for the day after Christmas, which was impossible given my schedule. I was able to reschedule my appointment, but the soonest they were able to get me in was 6 months later in June…
Exactly the same thing has just happened to us!
An update on my husband’s case. He “missed” his appointment in Feb 23, although had told SEF in advance he couldn’t make it, our lawyers were trying to swap his appointment for my baby who’d not been invited. This failed and my husband then fell in the black hole and wasn’t invited again. However our baby was recently invited for first time. Our lawyer petitioned SEF for my husband to go at same time, on basis our baby is a minor and can’t go alone. And yesterday - SEF called our lawyer and invited my husband on the same day as our baby! Now my husband is a pilot and has no flexibility, but he’s of course trying to move heaven and earth to get there, without losing his job.
Thought this would be of interest as I know there are few examples of people being invited again - we were about to file a case! Maybe SEF are starting to get on top of things? 
So the solution to a missed appointment seems to be - have another child who needs to be accompanied… 
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We decided not to pull the kids out of school. Been 18 months and they have not been invited back yet. I am going to renew my visa soon. Argh!
In your case I’d file a suit personally. My lawyer doesn’t believe they intentionally don’t re-invite people - their system just isn’t sophisticated enough to deal with people who miss them. Filing a case just seems to get the attention of SEF on your application.
Out of curiosity, how was your date scheduled in the first place?
Did you schedule and later change due to mitigating circumstances by seeking to modify that date?
Did SEF schedule for you and expect you to show up whenever they deem it relevant?
Did your lawyer, perhaps working off of milestone-based payments, pre-select on your behalf without consulting you?
Details would be helpful. Cannot imagine SEF expects people who reside globally and in remote parts of the world to simply show up at a moment’s notice when they have not been able to plan the pre-approval date
My lawyer booked the appointment for my husband, my son and I on the same date, after the booking window opened for us in December 2022. They didn’t have time to ask our availability as slots were going first - they just grabbed 3 appointments together. However husband is a pilot and couldn’t get the time off, we told our lawyer that. Our daughter was not invited. As she was a baby at the time - just turned 1yo, she had to travel with me, her mother, when we went to Portugal, and I would have had to go back with her at a later date to do her biometrics. Our lawyer therefore spent ages trying to contact SEF to get them to agree to use the booked slot for my husband for our daughter instead. Even on the day they were trying to get them to do my daughter’s biometrics, but we got the computer says no answer. My husband’s appointment was therefore never officially cancelled - even though SEF had been told he couldn’t make it and asked to use it for our daughter - and he went in to their system as a no-show and seemed to fall in to their black hole. Months passed, we heard nothing, and were getting ready to file a case. However then our daughter got invited for hers. Our lawyer managed to petition SEF and get them to agree that my husband could do his at the same time as the baby had to be accompanied by a parent. When my daughter was invited there were plenty of appointments available to book, so we selected the date and location that worked best for us. That was last August.
Your lawyer probably chose the first appointment they could get.
Got it… seems like the subject of this thread is “Has anyone tried to change their appointment after first confirming it”
Lawyers should always act on the instructions from the customer as opposed to acting unilaterally!!
I do not think any of them have a POA for these types of matters!
My understanding is that you can reschedule within the booking window that opens up for you. But it’s a total nightmare to try to schedule one beyond that - even for people who’ve had very good reasons, such as being unable to travel due to a late stage of pregnancy…
Has anyone been able to schedule an appointment outside of the ‘booking window’ that was first provided? Mine gave me between 6-15 days notice, which I had indicated through legal that I could not attend
Also, how can we check new dates on our own?