I dunno, given how they were talking about cutting off applications after Feb 16 or whenever, even if that is illegal it wouldnt surprise me if they decide to invalidate all āplaceholderā applications. AKA all ācompleteā applications as of some deadline will be considered valid, but perhaps applications submitted without paperwork will not be considered valid.
Who knows if that will be true or not, but I would suggest getting your paperwork submitted ASAP.
I wouldnāt want to have missing documentation when SEF looks at my application, for fear of them never returning to it. There are a handful of people who missed their biometrics appt, for example, and have never been able to reschedule.
I would not either. But this is a judgement call - between the applicant and their lawyers.
If I read things correctly, the controversy and opposition stirred up by two points - (i) the menace of coercive rentals and (ii) closure of all the GV is giving everyone room for further reflection. But the outcome is not certain and timing may be key.
Hi @ohbee, the draft wording doesnāt state anything about what would happen to applications submitted after Feb 16th, it merely states the applications submitted by Feb 16 would remain unaffected. Itās important not to draw conclusions from its imprecise wording or omissions 
The law under which SEF accepts GV applications remains unchanged, and therefore SEF is legally obliged to accept applications till the law is amended. Any new law cannot be backdated, ie take away something that the previous law allowed at the time. āInvalidatingā applications in the system already will bring an onslaught of lawsuits, not something the government will necessarily want to trigger.
Hi, not sure I quite agree with your first paragraphā¦ The draft law specifically repeals all prior law under which the State granted a GV, so if the bill passes there will be no legal basis for any GVs to be approved from the date the bill takes effect. EXCEPT THAT the bill provides a specific exception to approve a GV in the future if the application is awaiting a decision as of 16th Feb. Precisely what a ādecisionā means is vague, but it seems clear that an application that wasnāt in by 16th Feb wonāt be covered.
Now, this may change - it does seem unfair to squash an application made on 17th Feb. After all, no-one hears about the PGV one morning and pops in an application that afternoon; as we all know, there are weeks or months of work leading up to the application, which may be expensive and may involve long-term commitments. So itās possible the government may be persuaded, perhaps by the President or the courts, to move the 16th Feb date to some later date.
All we can do at the moment is grasp wildly at conspiracy theories, as these statements from the government are many steps away from becoming law.
Agreed that, according to literally every lawyer in Portugal, there will be no retroactive application of changes, whatever they end up being!
My application was officially submitted on Monday. Iāve been assured by my lawyer that Iām fine at this stage. If youāre investment is in place and are just waiting on paperwork I think youāll be ok.
I think for me, the biggest legal question is whether changing the renewal terms is going to be considered retroactive application or not. I think that is a closer call and have not heard that being discussed.
@va.trade23 Thanks for the update, John. Super helpful! Quick question: did your lawyer ask for an original apostilled document? We hear that mere scans of apostilled documents are enough for the initial SEF submission (and then the original apostilled docs will be required for the biometric apt) but wanted to see if other people receive a similar piece of advice.
In this article, it states that they are blocking the payment of fees at GV application submission now. Has anyone experienced this?
This is news to me. Our lawyer advised on Thursday (the 9th) that they were still successfully submitting GV applications. Iām not sure if that also includes successfully submitting GV fee payments or not. I hope others will have more definitive answers.
It wouldnāt be altogether surprising. SEF is on notice that they will have to deny applications post 16th Feb, if the law passes as drafted. Probably they would end up refunding hundreds of application fees if they accept them today. They may never have issued a refund beforeā¦ easier to say you can pay later if it turns out your application is allowed.
Just submitted mine on Friday March 3/10. Doing it different from most since I started a company and had to get to 10 employees.
Respect to you @madmartinb ā¦ thatās certainly a bigger contribution to the Portuguese economy than Iām making. Best of luck.
I happened to have the ability to start a company. Weāre up to 13 and looking for 2-3 more. Makes all trips to Europe tax deductible now since we will enter through Portugal. We will see !!!
Was your payment accepted?
(I had to wait a couple of days after document submission thru the ARI portal before payment was accepted by SEF)
Can you share what sort of company you started? Iād love to hear more about the process
My lawyer submitted the last of my dependent applications on Friday at 1pm, so as of that time, the portal was accepting applications (it may well still be). From what I experienced, after the application submission, the lawyer generates or receives a payment statement from SEF. This payment statement/invoice has a reference number that can then be used to pay via a bank transfer, etc. The reference number becomes valid 48 hours after issuance. I have this payment statement for the last of my dependent applications, so my belief is that my lawyer will be able to pay for the last application on Monday via a bank transfer, but I will confirm with him on Monday morning if thatās still the case.
Itās not clear from the article what exactly it infers to by stating āthe system is blockedā. The article states that it received an email from South African investors earlier this monthā¦paymentsā¦the system is blocked. This canāt be true that system was blocked earlier this month because the ARI portal on Monday through Friday was still generating payment statements post application submission. Anyone on the cusp of submitting will find out on Monday whether the system is indeed āblockedā.
The article is click-baiting a little bit - it cites the Law Association making a statement about what happens to applications post Feb 16th, cites lawyers stating that the law appears to trying to change this retrospectively, and states the that there is no guarantee of a positive decision post Feb 16th. I think anyone who is submitting an application now must understand that there is an element of risk involved. Letās wait for the law to publish, which will be the final word on this.
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