Where do I sign up for the ride 
I appreciate your words of encouragement, one can never get enough of it.
Now, onto surfing forum to find a bank I can open online without much hustle for all my payments.
Bison, Atlanico, Millenium BSP, Novo Banco are all on my list 
https://wise.com/us/blog/opening-a-bank-account-in-portugal
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Thanks. Please note that across the board you will find an increased amount of KYC (know your customer) requirements. This will not be like dropping in a the local bank branch in the US and providing a drivers license and electric bill. Expect some degree of paperwork/ hassle. If you find none, then rejoice.
This is one of the best, if not the best, word of encouragement for us all going through this PT GV journey. Thank you for reminding us of the big picture and for putting things into perspective!
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There is nothing silly about it, and like i said you may get a discounted deal as you have made it to this point by yourself. In fact if you don’t do it now, there is a not a small chance that your application may never be approved.
Regarding the bank declaration, I had a near miss myself and only avoided this trap because my RE agent was more knowledgeable than my crappy lawyer who I had at the time. But I hired a crappy lawyer because I did not know about this forum 
You can find good ones recommended here.
One other point of clarification - there is one person on this forum who actually did it all by himself without a lawyer, and he is now at this second renewal if I am not wrong. But he did it back in the pre-pandemic days where things were a lot more straightforward. Also I myself submitted my initial application practically without a lawyer as my so-called lawyer at that time was more of a nuisance than help. But I can tell you it was a hard work and a massive investment of my time.
At the point where I was ready to actually make the investment transaction, I had a panic attack as my RE agent spotted a few things that would derail my GV, and I had no idea about them despite reading all of SEF/AIMA official and unofficial documents I could find online.
Thank you SOOOO much for the warning Everything has a cost, if one would sleep better at night, they should absolutely delegate everything to professionals
I am the kinds of a person who does my own taxes, if you know what I mean.
Since the primary application is only 4 documents, I was not concerned at this stage. I am now.I will take your advice seriously for my dependents though but it might take several months to translate and apostille all the documents and I didn’t want to wait. There is always a non zero chance your lawyers mess up you application and It never gets approved ether. It actually happened to me before, big time.
I lost 3 years because I relied on experts so much for my US green card. Maybe it left me with some scars. So from now on, I want to be closely involved and if I can do something myself, I do it.
I could use a lawyer before the biometrics and before the in-person interview, but i think you and other maker the process pretty straightforward so fingers crossed. I have 4 documents: 2 in Portugese from a bank and the company, 1 passport and one crime records certificate, apostilled and translated. That’s it.
But honestly-please tell me what do lawyers do on top of this since I am the one collecting and translating all the docs 
Aside from a peace of mind - what’s the value added from them at this stage? 
A good lawyer would provide a much-needed interface with AIMA as this process is on-going battle that spans many stages, including verification of proper compliance with AIMA requirements, communications, scheduling, negotiations, and, unfortunately, legal actions to keep your process moving forward. The cost of engaging a lawyer down the road vs. at the on-set would probably be negligible.
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In our case, despite our appeal being “accepted” (and AIMA thus notified), it hasn’t actually been adjudicated yet - and may never be, as we got our Bios done so it’s kind of a moot point now. I’d still prefer it get ruled on, to keep pressure on AIMA for final approval, cards, etc.
All that said, our lawyers brought up our case with AIMA every opportunity they got (i.e. during appointments for their other clients)… so it may well have been that which got us Bio appointments and not the court.
Lots of administrivia gets done in-person in Portugal. So having a lawyer on the ground who speaks Portuguese helps.
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I agree. We delegated a lot to our lawyer and didn’t regret the money. From making appointments to filling forms. Our layer still holds our cards because we used his address as “local” address and “local phone number” and many such things. It may be small stuff, but it adds up over time.
Just to followup on everyone’s suggestion here - we discussed it as a family and we are reaching out to lawyers as this community advised. Thank you all so much for your help! 
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Last thing I want to leave for posterity here - if someone wants to do the process themselves - please let me talk you out of it. 
I engaged with the lawyers and I already feel like a big burden got off my shoulders, now I know there is someone else looking out for my best interest. It’s a great feeling and I am very grateful for this forum for convincing our family to do the right thing 
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