Thanks for the informative response! The side letter is in case the government decides to change the rules in a way thay impacts your application and/or doesnt allow you to get the GV. With everything up in the air right now, its a good thing to have for safety.
Weāre about to make the investment in Mercan, which is basically using up all our savings, so weāre naturally quite wary
Thatās not how I understand the arrangement. (For simplicity, Iām using āweā to refer to the investors.)
We own the hotel and the land. Itās the development/management contract that requires us to sell it back to the Mercan subsidiary for the original price, and if that contract is voided because the Mercan subsidiary is dissolved, we would become free to sell it to anybody else (almost certainly at a substantial loss).
We could sue the Mercan subsidiary to fulfill the buyback/interest/penalties clauses of the contract, but if it came to that, the subsidiary would likely already be just an empty shell with no money left. There would be no meaningful āfirst in lineā position.
IOW, the only meaningful lawsuit would be if Mercan had been fraudulently siphoning money from the subsidiary and depleting the buyback fund. But if the hotel simply failed to earn money and Mercan gives up on it, they could eat their side of losses, dissolve the subsidiary, and walk away. Mercanās reputation would be trashed, of course, but there wouldnāt be anybody for us to sue.
Read thru this thread and somewhat fun to re-live the anxiety from Feb announcements played out againā¦ 
Given all those posts I decided to go back to your original post and intentā¦ I went with a Hotel scheme, using an independent lawyer, and they submitted my application April 26 and my rest of family May 10. My lawyer advised he was seeing my biometrics could take up to 11 monthsā¦ So I figure I have lots of time to watch the market, stay healthy and keep planning for the ābig moveāā¦ More time to figure out details like taxes, long term planning, etcā¦ Hopefully it wonāt be as long as they quote as I really donāt want to wait for a 2 year process but I guess itās better than getting shut offā¦ 
I hope that your lawyer is correct, but it seems very unlikely you will even have pre approval in less than a year. SEF is still processing Dec 2021 applicationsā¦then thereās all of 2022, then thereās presumably a huge pile of applications trying to sneak in before the program ends.
It would be great to know on which data your lawyer based their estimate. Did they say?
11 Months is extremely unrealistic right now. The SEF is still processing pre-approvals for applications filled in December 2021. There is also a huge amount of applications speculated to have been filled in June 2022. After that it should be relative smooth sailing, however, you can still expect another 6 months or so. If I were you, Iād expect 2025 at the earliest unless something major changes.
i finished my application 2 weeks ago and waiting for confimation of my document and pre approve
i am very worried
do you get preapproved?
my lawyer said buy an apartment is very better that hotel Because you finally have a definitive apartment and property document
I read your comment and I admire your courage to apply when it is not yet clear whether it will be GV or not, and I hope you will be successful until the end of the road. Since I applied soon, I wanted to ask how valuable the Golden Visa program is for you to accept such a risk. . This gives me strength
You will most likely be waiting yearS for pre approval. Time to settle in!
I did not go through mercan but my lawyer just submitted my GV application last week. They did advise it will take around 20 months for pre approval at this point so itās definitely a long wait.
Real estate and real estate related funds are no linger valid investments for golden visa. So pleas3 beware
Arenāt they still valid unless and until the president signs them into law?
Thatās correctāstill valid until then.
True, but the president has no reason not to sign. He is in a way forced to sign what is approved by the cabinet as long as it within the framework of the constitution. So it is prudent to be careful.
My Lawyer submitted the application on March 2nd, 2023 and the status is still under āApplication under Analysisā.
Did anyone know the different status applications go through? Ex:"āApplication under Analysisā., pre-approval and what is the difference.
I donāt have any hope to get any kind of change in status any sooner than the end of 2024.
Thanks
ASG
From memory I think the stages are:
Em anĆ”lise = under analysis, once youāve paid your initial application fee
Candidatura Aceite = pre-approved
Transferido SIISEF = final approval (SIISEF is the national immigration system)
Other statuses are possible, e.g. if documents are missing, etc.
Aguarde envio = initial status before the submission, or later when documents are missing and have to be re-submitted.
Can you tell me if you can see the fee payments for each of the family member applicants in the SEF portal? Also, do each of your family member applicants have a unique application number in the SEF portal or are they the same
As the primary applicants? Our lawyer has the only access to the SEF portal and has told us he applied for our whole family (primary applicant plus 4 family members) but we have only ever paid 3 application fees and with a large gap
In timing from the day he said he submitted our applications. I am trying to figure out if all of us actually have applications on file with SEF and I donāt feel like our lawyer is being very forthcoming.
I canāt answer the question about the portal. But have you all been pre-approved and invited for biometrics? With an October 2021 application you should have been. If anyone hasnāt been invited yet that would suggest your lawyer didnāt submit the applications at the same time. Iām the primary applicant and my family membersā applications were submitted a few weeks after mine / 2 months later for my daughter who wasnāt born when mine was submitted. Mine was submitted late October 2021. We were all pre-approved at the same time in May 2022. The 3 of us who submitted in Oct / Nov 2021 were invited for biometrics in Feb 2023 and my daughter who submitted in Jan 2022 was invited in August 2023.