So, mixed bag for us, so far. As a reminder, our previous dates are posted again below, and the decision of the suit called for SEF/AIMA to forward a decision for the rest of the family 10 working days after that of the primary (me). Since my approval and payment, it has been crickets. I’ve also written to our lawyers to find out next steps, but there has been zero response for them as well. It is so frustrating! So close, but not there yet. It would be nice to finalize our travel plans…
(Edited to add: finally heard back from the lawyers. They are going to push on AIMA for this, and then go back to the Courts if necessary. With all of the cases there now, who knows how long that would take!)
Application (main): 24 November 2021
Application (+3 family): 29 November 2021
Pre-Approval (main): 29 July 2022
Pre-Approval (+1 family): 12 August 2022
Pre-Approval (+2 family): 23 August 2022
Biometrics (+ family: Porto): 30 January 2023
Biometrics (main: Lisbon): 9 February 2023
Summons Filed: 16 November 2023
Judge Ruled (Denied): 12 January 2024
Summons Filed Again: 5 February 2024
Judge Ruled (Approved): 3 April 2024
Additional Document Requested: 16 April 2024
DUC issued (main): 6 May 2024
Payment made (main): 10 May 2024
Hey everyone! I just filed my lawsuit and I was wondering how long it’ll take for the judge to rule.
Lawyer said there is a preliminary ruling, which happens very quickly (within couple of days), which will most likely determine the outcome of the case. Is this true?
I heard there is another route regarding the claim against AIMA, that is to through the Ministry of Presidency. As the administrative court has received so many lawsuits and become paralysed…
Anyone knows that?
In our case the preliminary was about 8 weeks but the Christmas holiday was in the middle. It was 5 months to win the case. It’s now been about 7 weeks and still no approval. All case timelines are a little different though. You are dangerously close to summer holidays in which nothing will happen.
Urgent is a few months unless the courts are flooded with lawsuits and the govt decides to transfer all AIMA lawsuits to one city for processing. So now it is many months…I am waiting for a response since end of 2023.
Not to be depressing, but keep in mind that even winning a lawsuit doesn’t necessarily help. Our case was granted on the second application, we got to the point of paying my DUC, but now weeks of silence both on receiving my card (has my clock started? who knows??) and also on the 10-business-day-later mandate for approving my dependents. After the initial decision, we made plans to go to Portugal in July, but that is looking less and less likely to be valid for the first year of the visa.
I submitted a lawsuit before pre-approval. After AIMA received the case, but before the court ruled on that case, AIMA pre-approved my application.
My lawyer suspected this only happened because of the case AIMA received.
We then revised the lawsuit to reflect the new circumstances (but still asking for them to make a decision over the whole application - not just a specific stage of the application).
The court agreed with me and gave AIMA 40 days to make a decision, AIMA did this by scheduling a Biometrics appointment, asking for new documents and approved the whole application within the time required. I was fortunate I could attend the appointment at short notice & submit a new bank declaration. I received a card about two weeks after that.
I took away from this that the case should be for a decision over the whole application, not an individual stage, but reflect the current stage you’re at when setting out the information.
It appears that other have different experiences / success.
Thanks Peter! Minor note: since it seems the courts are themselves experiencing a backlog now, when talking about your lawsuit experience can you include the rough dates it was filed/concluded? Since lawsuits filed in the past likely went much faster than lawsuits filed now will.