Dear all,
has anyone completed their renewal from Faro in the last 8 months. In the sheet I only saw one renewal which was processed around 107 days.
It would be great to hear about few more data points.
Cheers
Hi @Onward, Thanks for pulling this data together! Super helpful. Iâm a little confused by the data in the last table. What do the numbers under the locations represent? # of months still waiting for card? # of applicants who applied in the qtr who still havenât received their card? Taking the 13 from Porto as an example it canât be the former as itâs been less than a year since Q2-22. On the other hand you mention a sample size of 20.
@mgotuaco - If it is the table above it is the number of months people who have not yet received a card, are still waiting, as of 16th March 2023, by where/when they did the Biometrics. You made me realise that there was a mistake in the database for one applicant. Table revised here, with thanks! I will edit the original post as well: Awaiting Final Approval (Stage 4) - #331 by Onward
The data for those without a card is until the last update from that person. Thus, for Lisbon 2021Q3 the person has been waiting from since biometrics In 24Aug2021 until last update on this forum on 20Feb23. A Coimbra person for 2021Q3 had biometrics in 29Sep21 and was waiting 8.5 months as of their last update here in May22. No report here of receiving a card thereafter. The table below is the count of people waiting.
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Thanks - how about the 8.5 and 7.0 Coimbra and Porto datapoints? Not sure how to interpret those. If these are all ânot yet receivedâ individuals, It seems like it may be better to show the # of applicants (by location and bio qtr) who have yet to receive their cards.
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@WBishop - Is the date on the card when SEF received the final payment from you or a much later date? Reason Iâm asking is that I received my card about 2 weeks after final approval (due to mail times) but the actual date on the card (what really matters) is only 1 day after payment was made. Wondering what the gap time is from payment to the actual card date (which is the start of the 2 year clock) rather than when the mail gets the card to you.
Ah I see. Thanks so much for the clarification and pulling this together!
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Are the 1st time cards issued for 1 year? Somewhere I read that this may have changed to 2 years, but I could not understand whether it referred to GVs or other types of residence cards.
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It is valid for two years.
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Many thanks! This is actually great news.
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Indeed. The joker handling our case asked for police certificate from a country we left in 2018! We switched to automatic.
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Hi all, just had another talk with the lawyers. No good news, I am afraid, for some of us stuck in the process - looks like weâve been unfortunate to have our files landed on somebodyâs desk, and this person is just not doing their job, and most importantly, does not care. The lawyer described the current situation at SEF as a total mess. They do not respond, do not reschedule, do not explain etc. What is worse is that theyâre not afraid of being brought to court as they are actually not losing that many cases, per the lawyer. She said that they recently filed 3 identical cases, and the courtâs ruling was in favour of SEF in 2 of them. Thatâs why she is advising in our case against going to court as the result may be unpredictable, and on top of this, getting into the court procedure halts the process for the applicant - and in our situation weâre too far along to risk it. I donât know what to believe or think anymore, but she sounded genuine and pretty upset overall with the SEFâs attitude. The lawyers have already been receiving approvals for those who submitted biometrics after us, but we seem to be together with a few others who are stuck (this is late Feb 22 submission in Lisbon). She also shared how difficult it is now to schedule biometrics, including that SEF even says that if someone does not show up for the originally scheduled appointment, they cannot guarantee they would call them again any time soon (even if the reason for the no-show is totally justifiable). She said they now have cases of people waiting for biometrics for some 2 years⊠I honestly donât know what to do. We were pre-approved in Jan 21, and nobody can tell us when to expect anything.
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You should definitely talk with another lawyer, is what it sounds like. Surely the rule of law is not so weak in Portugal that âidentical casesâ result in varied results
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I understood that in these cases the judges left it to to SEFâs discretion to continue studying/processing the cases. It does not mean that these applicants wonât be granted approvals, but just that SEF has a right to take longer.
Since SEF is undergoing restructure, could it be that the office which your case ended up with has no one on the position of processing ARI?
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Itâs the Lisbon office, I suppose they should still have those processing ARI. The lawyerâs version is that the case landed on a desk of a staff with a backlog/whoâs working slowly/is on leave etc. Since other cases submitted to the same office even later got approved. But SEF does not say who is in charge of the case. I know 2 other persons (one case, theyâre family) submitting on the same day with us, we were right after them at SEF, and same legal firm. The lawyer said that they have not been approved either. So it looks like it may just this unfortunate bunch of applications submitted around those dates. Both our cases have âawaiting superior decisionâ status. So sheâs going to make yet another inquiry now reminding SEF of their own promise to keep the chronological order - letâs seeâŠ
Thank you for clarification, I do see where your lawyer is coming from and what she is describing is quite imaginable for SEF. I still have faith in the restructuring , APMA might be a savior. I hope you Mr case get resolved soon!
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Getting a case unstuck is really all down to relationships. SEF is overrun and no doubt the employees are tired and demoralized and drowning in paper. They can work on whateverâs prioritized (ukraine etc) at the expense of someone else (ARI) but that doesnât improve throughput, and indeed the more thrashing around there is about what to prioritize or not, the more inefficient the process becomes and thus even lower throughput. (âGo find case and prioritize itâ => more wasted time to find case, context switch into it, etc. This is just common queue management stuff.) Eventually throughput shrinks to the point that you are stuck on the FDR at 5:30pm. There is no great fix short of adding another lane or having Google auto-drive take over all of the cars so they transit absolutely optimally and even then when you are at the limits of throughput any old perturbance will upset the balance.
You can go through the court but first you have to get through the court, and even then, when a police officer says âlet this ambulance through!â how well does that REALLY work on the FDR at 5:30? The ambulance moves, and a bit faster than the rest of traffic, but it sure as hell ainât zooming along at 50mph either.
If you have the right lawyer that has the right relationship with the right person, you can get something unstuck. Sure, at the cost of someone else. But first you have to have that right lawyer who has the right phone number and what button to push, and that isnât going to be all of them. There is no good answer to that either.
It all sucks. And itâs easy for me to pontificate, I have no hat in this ring. But I sympathize.
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We began this journey in August 2020, and I agree with @jb4422 . Having the right lawyer certainly seems to help keep things moving. Bear in mind that even the best lawyer is still having to deal with SEF issues which are not under their control.
Donât choose Coimbra! As of 2 weeks ago they were processing June 2022 applicants.