Source for this info please?
The agreements Iâve seen specify that Mercan may also force the buyback after 10 years even if you donât have citizenship.
I believe it. They probably want some assurance they will get the property back someday. Otherwise itâs kind of this open sore on the side of the business, as the deed is encumbered, which makes selling the hotel off a real PITA.
However, the situation is such that Mercan letting people hang on until âeventuallyâ wouldnât be the end of the world for them either. Rarely does any business actually want clear title - they mortgage the property to free up capital.
Really the situation is somewhat akin to that of many US homeowners, who bought a house a while back when interest rates were cheap, and are now kicking back and enjoying those sweet sweet 3% mortgages. Mercan originally went into this to get a construction loan to build a hotel. Well, that construction loan has potentially just turned itself into an additional 5 year mortgage at a fixed 3%. Given the current interest rate environment, I bet Mercan management is having PR write nice comforting letters to the investors about how âwe understand the difficulties of the situation, and we assure you we will let you hang on as long as you needââŠ
This article was provided by one of the attorneys who regularly meet with AIMA re GV issues to one of my WhatsApp groups to explain why GV investments must be retained beyond the initial 5 years. It deals mostly with applicants for permanent residency specifically. Applicants are exempt from the requirement to spend 2 months per year in Portugal as permanent residents but only if they retain their GV investment for the entire period of the permanent residency permit.
Attorneys in the group indicated that AIMA reads the maintenance of investment requirement to also mean that those who have invested in funds and after 5 years apply for citizenship, must also maintain their investment until citizenship is approved and not just for 5 years. They also discussed that the AIMA has told their clients who want permanent residency that they may not apply for the regular permanent residency permit(low cost) but must apply for a GV permanent residency permit that costs thousands of euros.
As with so much of AIMA, the many changes in quick succession coupled with no written rules or policies have led to confusion and chaos. Whether we are talking about who benefits from reduced fees to how long you have to hold your investment after the 5 years, to why GV investors will not be allowed to apply for the standard permanent residence visa, there are no rules. Several of the lawyers on our WhatsApp group worked with the government to retain a portion of the golden visa program and still meet with AIMA periodically. The attorneys tell us that written guidance on these issues are in preparation and AIMA plans on publishing them sometime in October.
Will the guidance last as long as the ink takes to dry? Unknown.
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I think the first point, we already knew and kind of makes sense - why have a different class of permanent residence for GV without the requirements, if there isnât some quid pro quo, otherwise, get the normal PR.
The second one is new and doesnât seem like itâs really legal. It seems to enforce a requirement of > 5 years of legal residence, which is contradictory to the nationality law which clearly states 5 years. Iâd be surprised if it didnât get challenged. That could drag for a while of course.
Will the guidance last? Probably, after any challenges get settled, and unless the laws and regs get changed again. In this aspect, I canât blame AIMA - too much is in chaos to expect them to have some set of fixed guidelines. Not that I like the situation one bit, of course, but I canât blame them.
Given reports that AIMA is converting renewals of the discontinued ARI tracks to D2 visas (with corresponding lower D2 fees)⊠will that make the above mess even messier?
Is it any wonder they struggle to get anything done? 
No this is quite consistent with how most countries work. E.g. in the US it might take a year to process naturalization. Are you allowed to just leave the country that whole year? No! If you apply for citizenship then immediately leave, and only come back a year later for your interview, they might not only deny your naturalization, but also tell you that you abandoned your green card for being outside too long, in which case you get nothing!
The 5 years is just the âon paperâ time. Citizenship always takes longer than you think.
Most prospective citizens actually live there so it doesnât matter. And what kind of country kowtows to prospective citizens who donât even want to live there?
In fact some countries, like Ireland, reserve the right to revoke your citizenship if you naturalize and then live outside Ireland for too long.
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I take your point that it might be consistent with how other countries work, but it seems inconsistent with what the actual law says, which is all Iâm saying. Neither the law nor any of the decree-law regs around it that I read say anything about that kind of thing, itâs just 5 years of legal residence, no statement of âstill have to beâ. In this case, what I am understanding is going on here is that itâs AIMA making a policy thatâs more restrictive than the law. Not that that never happens, but it means it could potentially be challenged.
Iâm assuming for all the other places you are speaking about, those conditions are actually in the laws somewhere.
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Or looking at the law:
https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/legislacao-consolidada/lei/1981-34536975
Residirem legalmente no territĂłrio portuguĂȘs hĂĄ pelo menos cinco anos
Wiktionary says this is residirem - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
third-person plural future subjunctive
Which is above my Portuguese language knowledge. I guess you have to be a lawyer.
@jb4422 anyway to your point, one concession the US makes is that you can apply 3 months before your actually 5 year mark, presumably that was put in the law when processing times were around 3 months. Similarly Portugal could change the law to say, e.g. if processing times take 2 years, you can apply 2 years before your 5 year mark, the only restriction being they canât complete the processing until you reach 5 years.
Which, in a way theyâve done by moving the start date earlier!
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How does one âroll their funds into IMGAâ if they have invested in a different fund? Is there a process for fund rollovers that has been legally recognized by AIMA?
@Hippopotamousse that is above my paygrade but I recall the Mercan lawyers saying that if the money is moved into an investment of the âsame classâ you should be able to renew. But I donât know if itâs tested because nobody took so long to get citizenship before.
Even the lawyers will give different answers depending on who you ask.
In this case, I think you are required to inject some common sense.
Legal text is often written in a certain tense even if thatâs not the tense relevant at the time of proceedings. For example, it might be a crime to âdrive under the influence of alcoholâ. But at court, you canât argue that you arenât guilty because you âdroveâ past tense and not currently âdrivingâ during court in the present tense. Itâs just a way of capturing a legal threshold at a specific point in time. As @jb4422 alludes to above, having residence for at least 5 years can similarly capture the existence of the qualifying event at a particular point in time for purposes of meeting a legal threshold.
The law is very clear that you have to maintain the investment at least 5 years. If you want to continue to have a TR, I believe you would have to continue to maintain the investment.
I also disagree with other posters who stated that you must maintain the GV investments indefinitely if you apply for GV PR. Likewise to the above explanation, this just does not make any sense. It would effectively blur the distinction between TR and PR, with the only different being that you are renewing one every 2 years and the other every 5 years. It also guts the meaning of the word âpermanentâ .
It is worth noting a separate issue, that IRN has been known to check during the citizenship review process whether you are a legal resident. Based on what I know, there is no basis in the law for such a requirement but rather IRN does not want to grant citizenship to someone who has moved away from Portugal. It is effectively a remnant of the âShow ties to communityâ approach to citizenship. I donât view this as contradictory to the analysis above, but rather an indiciation that IRN does what it wants and without a court ordering them to stand down they will continue to do so.
Well PR always comes with conditions. For non-GV, that condition is that your PR will be cancelled if you spend too much time outside the country.
For GV, you get freedom to stay outside the country, but in its place is the condition you keep your investment. In effect your investment is âresidingâ in the country for you.
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Or you pay something like 9000 euros every 5 years.
I think this is my point. They do do it. Thus it is a requirement. However itâs really not clear to me that it should be, or was intended to be, a requirement. I have seen a translation that to me said it did not mean âcurrently residingâ but âhave residedâ. Obviously we know little about the application of third person subjunctive Portuguese language constructs in terms of the Portuguese legal framework and I admit I could be wrong. But we all I think have at least a little experience of the tendency of government apparatuses in terms of overreach or misunderstood application and perhaps that biases our view. 
I agree. The translation of the law that Iâve seen is that it says you need to have held residency within Portugal for 5 years of the past 15 - I donât believe it says that you currently need to maintain it. However, I also understand the point that continuing to maintain the residency is used to show a tie to the country.
Where this could be particularly relevant is in the case of minor dependents who need to wait to apply for their citizenship until their parent has theirs. Once their parent who is the primary applicant has their citizenship their visa will be cancelled I believe, meaning the dependentsâ visas cannot be renewed. So it would be impossible for them to maintain their residence during the citizenship application process. For two parent families this is not as much of an issue - the non-primary applicant parent can apply for citizenship first, and the primary applicant can wait to apply until the time the children are able to apply (this is what I plan to do). But those in single parent families would be totally screwed - this doesnât seem at all fair. I donât believe this is deliberate, just a quirk of the law.
One would hope theyâd be more flexible in that case since those dependents are not applying for citizenship based on residence, but based on their connection to a Portuguese citizen (their parent).
But again, this is only a problem for GV. Every other permit holder, who is actually living in Portugal, would have no problem switching their children to the âchild of Portuguese citizenâ permit, once they themselves become citizens.
It is very clumsy statement. Strange for the lawyers. The rules are the following:
- You are required to keep the investment while you are in the GV program, either temporary residence or permanent. It was always like that. No question. And was communicated at the beginning. There is no relation to citizenship. Citizenship is the separate question. Some person may even decide not to get citizenship. Unfortunately, many lawyers gave wrong information and false promises to attract clients to the program. GV program for example never promised citizenship. But Portugal included our type of residence to be counted for citizenship even if we do not spend time here. It is a little bit different statement, isnât it? Good lawyers even cautioned clients that law about GV program does not have any statements or relation to law about citizenship and it is a risk.
- Minimum period of 5 years appeared later in the program. I am reading it the following way: even if you decide to leave the program, you have to keep yr investment at least 5 years
- GV PR costs roughly the same price per year as usual GV. Neither me nor my lawyers have seen anybody who received that GV PR. The approval takes averagely same time as primary GV card. Donât do it, donât lose yr time. Especially that GV renewal now cost only 177.
- If you live in Portugal, you may apply for usual PR. However, you need to leave GV program officially. There are several successful examples, that people wrote an official statement to cancel GV program and applied for normal PR and got it. Not every lawyer knows that, and even not every AIMA knows that. But you may ask. Unfortunately, all examples are either on Madeira or Açores. But again if we could renew at 177 why to bother? I know that 177 fee is only for some investments, not for everybody. However, for that investments it is even more dubious that you will get GV PR. It is a separate applications and that investments are not eligible anymore. Who knows?
Caution: if you decide to cancel GV program and get usual PR, do it BEFORE applying to citizenship. Who knows how this cancelation will affect your process. Before application - nobody will take those years from you. The law does not require to have residence uninterrupted or on the same type of residence. Law says 5 yrs consecutive or interrupted in last 15. - Just want to repeat once more time. At the moment, the practice is the following: you need to have valid residence card at the time of citizenship application and at the stage 4 when IRN will check that requirements. IRN does not treat the law. IRN asks AIMA and takes contagem de tempo as a proof. IRN even does not know what type of visa you have been at. If you will not have a valid residence card when IRN asks AIMA, AIMA replies âdoes not meet the requirementsâ. Period. Than IRN will write to you saying âfalta documentosâ and you will have some time to provide them or ask for prolongation of that time. If you could not renew yr residence due to AIMA fault you will definitely get this prolongation. If you decided not to prolong yourself, I have no idea. I know cases when people get decline from IRN in that case.
In general, at the moment the process works that way, however new government is making some reforms now.
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I can only tell you what we were told by attorneys after consultation with AIMA. Their reports included the experiences of their clients. This illustrates the dilemma: multiple contradictory answers to the same question between lawyers and sometimes between different persons within AIMA. We were also told that AIMA is in the process of completing written guidance regarding these and similar GV issues and the written document is expected to be published some time in October.
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Some important comments:
- Covid prolongation does not work as a valid residence card for citizenship. However, covid prolongation fills space between valid cards.
- You need to change yr focus. Important what is written in contagem de tempo. If you have any doubts, you could ask the one from AIMA and verify what you get. It is not worth to take the risk and know about it in 1.5 yr time in the citizenship process. However, during the process the rules may also change and when IRN asks AIMA new contagem de tempo would be different.
- Due to Lei âmais habitaçaoâ and new law regarding time counting from the application, the government need to write new clear rules to AIMA, how to count the time. Plus they reform AIMA again and many things changed already this year. So the practice how they issue contagem de tempo may change in a close future. For example, to the better. You need to keep that in mind.
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