Mate, none of us will ever believe that isn’t your sister.
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As I said once, it actually caused a good bit of confusion when first making our application. Apparently Garrett is a relatively common surname in Portugal, whereas it’s my first name. Luckily, my surname isn’t Portuguese sounding at all or I’d be in even more trouble!
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I have good news to share! We received final approval yesterday for me and all my family members. To recap:
Applied: September 2021
Preapproval: January 2022
Biometrics: September 2022 (Lisbon)
Court Case Filed: January 2024
Court Decision: April 2024
Final Approval: April 2024
Now I wait for the DUC to be issued and the fun of will the cards show up or not and if so, how long will they be valid for.
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Thanks Garrett - so just to confirm you paid in the region of 700 euros to file a case?
Correct - I don’t remember the exact number, sorry
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updating my own post. we have now initiated lawsuits for both of our two outstanding renewals. According to my attorney discussion this morning, the only movement that she is seeing (I am only asking about renewals) is when a lawsuit is filed.
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Thanks for your update. I am now mentally prepared that I am going to file a case for my renewal too. Mine is Q3 2024.
it ticks me off since I am spending LOTS more than I planned. However, if this is the only way that progress is being made, I don’t want to get lost in the bolus that tries for online renewals once the system actually works again.
there are many thousands that have been unable to renew- so it will be congested for a while.
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Absolutely agreed! You’ve made a right decision. I am not going to wait for anything at this stage. I know what day my card is going to expire. The next day of the expiry date, my lawyer will submit a lawsuit regardless of whatever happens before/after/around that time. Considering about 350k/500k investment, now if I pay some Ks more to make things going on the right track, it is OK!!!
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in for a penny…in for a few pounds
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Yea unfortunately I think this is the only sensible solution. AIMA/SEF has flagrantly abdicated any semblance of its responsibility to GV applicants, through no fault of ours. If we have to drag them through the mud kicking and screaming, so be it. A couple thousand more isn’t really material if it’s able to force them to deliver on their promises.
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And the nuisance of dealing with this rise in lawsuits might incentivise them to put more resources behind a smoother renewals process, so will hopefully have a long term pay off, at least for those of us with one more round of madness ahead.
Update from my lawyer:
“We have received information that AIMA has hired an external consultant whose purpose, following the payment of the DUCs for the cards, is to recheck that the process has been properly analyzed, after which the cards will be issued. Depending on the AIMA store responsible for the process, this can take up to 3 months.”
Has anyone else come across this?
I paid the DUCs for my wife and child on March 5 after AIMA complied with a court ruling and issued final approval for their GVs. I got mine a year ago but theirs had been held up.
Initially the lawyers said it will take 2-4 weeks to get the cards.
Has anyone filed a lawsuit because they didn’t get their residency card even after paying the DUC?
Cards take about 60 days to be issued from the DUC payment, that’s 8 weeks approx…
Thanks. In some cases seems to be just a couple of weeks but good to know this isn’t out of the normal!
the downside of filing a lawsuit is that AIMA will be “extra” vigilant to scrutinize everything for the renewal applicants, ie; boarding passes and receipts to ensure that every single detail of the requirements has been met, college transcripts, and proof of financial support for young adult secondary applicants, etc. This will be interesting.
Do you actually know this to be the case? Seems doubtful to me.
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highly doubt they have the resources for vigilance or even organizational memory
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You never know. They just asked a bunch of additional info for my family even though we have submitted all relevant documents. They didn’t ask this for a friend who is in a similar scenario, just me. Maybe because I filed a case to get the appointments?
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Maybe just a different office handling each case. Maybe the lawsuit forces them to do everything by the book on this round.
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