Hello everyone,
I bought a house on 1st of Sep and signed the contract with owner and paid all related taxes . However, the certificate of registration is not yet issued so I have the contract between me and the seller only.
My lawyer , applied for SEF through ARI portal and uploaded all the required documents but for the house he put the contract between me and the seller in addition to the original registration certificate which has the name of the previous owner . He did that because my criminal record is going to expire and it will take time to be issued again.
As per the lawyer , the certificate of registration can be added later to the application once it is issued .
My question is ,Will this affect my application like delay it or cause rejection ?
Either it would be delayed for having to redo the criminal background check (since you would further back in the queue when it is submitted) or it will be delayed because of what he did. Hard to say which one will be longer, but I think this would be a case where I would trust my lawyer’s expertise and experience.
Thanks for the answer.
I have submitted my application without having a property deed (i.e. title) in hand since my apartment was not yet ready. My lawyer sent an explanation that it was impossible to obtain the title at the time of submission. However, the certification letter from the Portuguese bank provided the paper trail of payments for the property in full (500K €, but in few installments due to the nature of the deal). That was sufficient for SEF to grant me pre-approval on a condition that at the biometric the actual property deed would be presented.
I finally got the title 11 months after paying for the property… Still no invitation for biometrics… 
Good luck!
Many Thanks, that’s very helpful.
I hope you get the appointment for the biometric soon.