Awaiting Biometrics (Stage 3)

Hi Ted, While this was months ago, congratulations! Can you kindly tell me what kind of questions they ask in the Biometrics interview? Thanks, Julie

Thanks - frankly I wasn’t asked much - there were things being asked / answered but in Portuguese between the SEF agent and my lawyer
 As long as you have a lawyer, I wouldn’t worry too much about it – it’s mostly things about “give me this doc, that doc” as I observed. Hope this helps.

When/where is your appointment?

If you have a lawyer
 they don’t ask you anything. The lawyer does all of the talking, you just shove your hand in the machine when asked and smile for the camera. Anything you say can and potentially will cause problems. Best advice: smile and keep your mouth shut.

If you don’t have a lawyer
 I gather from my lawyer that basically they scrutinize all your documentation with a fine tooth comb and ask questions about it and look for a reason to say “no”. :frowning: That is, depending on the person you get. You’re dealing with a clerk that makes EUR 900/mo and they often kind of resent you. All the arguments you or their politicians want to make about how you’re investing in the country etc mean nothing to this person, you’re just one of those rich foreigners driving prices up.

My wife just had her appointment today, so we are now done and can go home after a month in country. Whew. Not that we hated being here - far from it - but there is stuff to do at home and we miss our cat and our bed.

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Hi Nevada, thanks for sharing. Based on your observation, how many days in advance of these cancelations, in general? 1-2 days before the appointment days?

Jeff, thanks for sharing your observations, i just think that you may be over-imagining on behalf of SEF clerks. From all my experience with the public officials in PT so far I think at worst they do not care, while at best and most often they are quite willing to genuinely help. I know some countries where you can get resentment as a ‘rich foreigner’, or in fact you will get resentment by default no matter who you are :wink: but PT does not seem to be one of them, from what I have seen.

@rjw45, my observations are stale. The situation has changed for the better with the recent release of fresh appointment slots.

In my case, I was able to spot cancellations 2 or 3 times a week. They were usually in the Azores, for the following day, so I could not possibly get there in time. Occasionally I spotted better options and eventually I grabbed one that was compatible with my schedule.

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Thanks! @nevadaandonward

Hello Jeff,

Could you share if the officer noted any deficiencies such as expired background checks or extra documentation.
Also how do you submit them after the appointment ?
When is the 5322 Euros issuance fee due ?

Thanks
JP

They do. They fine-tooth-comb the entire document stack. One did the eye-follows-finger thing.

I do not know, my lawyer is doing that.

I do not know, my lawyer has been fronting all my charges so far as part of an arrangement and it hasn’t come up yet. Maybe @nevadaandonward has had to pay his by now.

Thanks. Was curious what documents did you have to follow-up and submit ?

How long does the whole process take generally?
On another note, a friend of ours went to Porto for his (and his family’s) SEF appointment and they cancelled the appointment on the spot! They had to fly back and now they are waiting for another slot to open up. Unbelievable


what whole process?

OMG, which month / week did this happen?

:scream:

You took the words right out of my mouth.


carolp
Carol How many people in the family and were they all scheduled together? Very sorry to hear this happened to them.

Hi, I’ve been leaving everything up to my lawyer, but after reading these posts, I think I’ve been slightly misled.
My question is, Can you try and make an appointment with SEF if you have not yet been given the Application Approval? I have been told that I should be getting approval 2 months after my paperwork was submitted, which would be mid-October.
My lawyer told me the other day that no slots are available, which I can see is just not true, but there’s no point in me getting upset about it if I can’t try and make an appointment because my application hasn’t been approved.
Thanks

No, you need to be pre-approved before you can sign up for an appointment.

It’s not incorrect to say that there are no slots available, it’s certainly generally true. Anything that gets cancelled isn’t available for very long. :slight_smile: The question is how aggressive your lawyer is, or is capable of being. That is probably the question to ask.

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About a month ago I got my password and username for SEF online system. On my first day, after a few refreshes I could find two appointment slots which didn’t suit my schedule at that time. However for the past 2 weeks I have been aggressively refreshing to find an appointment but I could not even catch one opening. These days it is even more difficult than before.

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For what it’s worth
 my lawyer mentioned that the “fly over and get last minute appointments” thing worked quite well
 until around mid-august. Which is about when it got mentioned on this board, I think. :slight_smile: After that, it became quite unreliable, as I discovered.

Welcome to the power of the internet.

Thanks for the updates on your efforts, these really help - I was thinking that it was only me still struggling to get an appointment or rather I was starting to think that I might have to change lawyers since my current lawyer doesn’t seem to be able to get me an appointment

Hi. !

Slots appear from time to time, but they are difficult to catch. Here is a few examples of those that i managed to pick up.

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