Can you dispose your investment before you get your permanent residence permit if 5 years have already passed since your initial investment (thanks to slow as hell SEF/AIMA)? Since the April change only applies to citizenship, if I do not try to obtain citizenship, do I have to go through the whole 2+2+1 process to get permanent residency from the initial granting of the very first golden visa ? Is there a way to downgrade citizenship to permanent residency? (China doesn’t allow dual citizenship so I can’t legally have both)
Hey einportugal, I asked the lawyers I am working with about this (but for citizenship) and they said that as long as you are maintaining “residency” with a GV you need to hold the investment. However, once you get the PR (or citizenship) you can sell the investment at any time. With the recent law change, the clock has already started ticking for getting your PR (or citizenship), so you would not need to hold the GV (and investment) for five additional years after first getting the GV card–you just need to hold it long enough to fulfill the 5 years since your application, apply for the PR, and receive that. For safety sake I’d just plan on holding everything until the PR card is in your hands.
I don’t think that’s right in relation to permanent residence. The recent changes to the Nationality Law have nothing to say about PR - only naturalisation - so the five year clock for PR remains from the date of your first ARI card.
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Thanks for the reply McLarge! Did your lawyer say the new law applies to PR as well? Only citizenship is mentioned in its wording.
cj807 may be correct, this is in relation to naturalization–I haven’t asked directly about the PR related to the new law.
Our attorney has advised us that the new law regarding time-line for citizenship only applies to citizenship and that the law concerning permanent residency is separate. She told us that the clock does not start toward permanent residency until the little plastic white temporary residency card is in your hands. We’re still waiting after two years and five months since our investment, and over a year since our biometrics appointment, for our cards.
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Thanks! It is crazy how now it is easier to become a citizen than a permanent resident!
The citizenship backlog is around three years according to my attorney, and may grow longer with the huge backlog of residence applications currently in process, so wouldn’t exactly call it “easy”.