Does anyone know if there have been any successful lawsuits that allowed an investor to liquidate the investment early due to AIMA delays? So if you’ve been waiting 4 years for a card, being able to liquidate sooner than 9-10 years (4 years of awaiting for approval + 5 years of holding GV for PR)?
The opportunity cost of capital and the increased risk to the investment make it extremely costly to keep holding onto the investment for so long.
When most of us applied, it was understandable that there could be up to a year of delay/processing and that was largely ignored, but now there are people with 4 coming on 5 years of delay from application date, which means they would have to hold on to their investment for 10 or more years.
Does the government just get to change a 5 year program into a 10 year program without any repercussions? I am not even talking about citizenship laws or anything, I am talking directly about the GV program here and what was advertised to us.
So, has anyone succeeded in filing a lawsuit to do this, is there an existing mechanism for it, or is anyone considering filing a lawsuit on this?
I’m thinking about doing the same thing. If the new Nationality Law is published as is, I’ll join whatever class-action lawsuit against the government, AND sue the developer of my GV investment as well, to be a pain in the butt for the Portuguese investment community. A cash crunch is what they collectively deserve for pulling the rug on us.
There is a clause in my investor agreement saying if my GV application is rejected, the developer will return my investment immediately; otherwise it is after 6 years. Of course, when I signed, the developer led me to believe that the review/approval/potential rejection would happen within 9-12 months, not three years. (I think the clause was acceptable to the developer because the funds were going to take time to be fully invested, so if one or two investors get rejected for cause and receive their money back, the whole project would still have enough money.) The 9-12 month timeline was not a written representation/promise in the contract, but there is enough in the PowerPoint slides, etc. for me to give it a try.
I think the big question mark I have is, if you are able to pull your funds out due to either the structure of your contract or some other agreement with the fund/developer within 6 years after applying, is it possible to sue AIMA and allow that to happen despite having 4-5 more years remaining before the PR.
Some people who applied in 2025 might get their cards in 1 year, and have to hold their investment for 6 years.
Some people who applied in 2021 had to wait 4 years, and have to hold their investment for 9-10 years.
My question is, does this unequal and completely arbitrary treatment of investors have any merit to take as a case against AIMA to allow liquidation of the funds early while maintaining status, assuming the investment contract you have permits that.
Let’s hope so. I’ve been suffering through 5 years of bad returns with no card in sight and my fund will liquidate before I reach the PR threshold whenever I get the card now.
Legally the investments is required to be held for 5 years. It does not say where the 5 years counting starts, so that means it starts from the moment the investment is made.
Guys, let’s have some faith. The President have not promugate the law yet. Until then, we can’t make all these statements as if we are done or finished. On many occasions, the parliaments have pushed some laws that was either vetoed or sent to constitutional court by the president and was thrown out by the court. This might not be different. I feel this law will be returned to the parliament for re-adjustment especially on the case of the GV applicants. I strongly believe this. So let’s be calm and positive.
That was my understanding through this whole process.
Some people get lucky and get their card issued in 1 year. Others get unlucky and get theirs issued in 4 years, having to hold the investment for 3 years longer to get PR and renew the visa.
This is completely arbitrary, that’s why I asked if anyone has successfully sued AIMA and been able to pull out their investment before the 5 years of residence permit are over, on the basis of this arbitrary and unfair treatment of people within the same class and category without any actual reason.
Also, let’s say the PR takes 2 years to process (Will probably take longer looking at citizenship timelines). Do we still need to hold the investment in the interim?
I don’t think PR will take 2 years like citizenship, it’s a card that expires after 5 years. And I heard that with PR, you don’t need to keep investment and also don’t need to live in Portugal. This information needs to be confirmed by your lawyers or anyone that have experience. Thanks.
Tens of thousands of people are applying for GV renewal and also first residence card. I don’t think we have the same amount of people applying for PR. Again, have you noticed there are lots of biometrics appointments after the new law was approved at parliament. And the speech by head of the parliament that they intentionly delayed GV for equallity basis. So they know what thehy are doing.
But AIMA has nothing to do with your investment per se. You can try to sue the fund, but I suspect in most cases that will go nowhere, because no promises were made in the bylaws of the fund. Maybe if some fund had poorly-worded marketing materials that you could point at… but even then, the fund can simply say “all we did was help you meet the requirement set by the government, we have no control over the government’s actions so we can’t be held responsible”.
Some of you might be able to try going after the GV marketers - someone like a GCS, say, as opposed to the fund - for false promises but I’m guessing that’s going to be a hard row to hoe.