This does not expressly state whether it is the date of document or apostille. âDeve ter sido emitidoâ could mean either, hence there is room for interpretation since the date of apostille technically validates the document it accompanies.
Thanks for sharing the SEF manual - it is very helpful.
Apostille does not validate the document per se and does not extend the documentâs issue date.
The meaning of the apostille is to verify the signatory of the said document.
Hence there can only be one possible interpretation of the âemitidoâ - i.e. the date of the document issue itself.
However, as I mentioned earlier - we can theorize here on the forum to our heartâs content, but the ultimate decision rests with SEF. And they can throw an exception at any point before issuing the cards.
So in my opinion it would be most useful to:
a) follow official SEFâs guidance I shared; and,
b) take the conservative option when a requirement is open to interpretations.
That way the applicant would not be misled and rejected based on false hopes that may or may not come true.
Absolutely. Always err on the side of caution, or you might end up like one of the poor bastards that post here about missing their biometrics appointment and getting lost in the system
Iâm thinking of putting up a simple wiki for pt GV, would be much easier than running everything through the forum where things get buried
Sounds like a good idea. The only issue is: it will be really hard to be consistent and cover all bases. As I pointed out, SEF accepted my FBI docs based on the date of apostille certificate whereas @tommygunn points out that per SEF manual, it is the date of the document itself matters⊠Go figure.
Give it a try and perhaps we can all âtweakâ it based on our experiences.
Yeah the sef doesnât seem super consistent but I assume the manual is the most conservative position so you can at least target that and hopefully you have no trouble or are over prepared
Roman, my own documents were not all in a perfect order but SEF âacceptedâ them too. Remember I only had 7 working days from booking to appointment over Christmas and New Year to refresh everything LOL
It was hard work and still a few papers not apostilled, not originals etc. etc.
But this is their discretion, not their rule.
If we want to help others on this forum to succeed, Iâd rather we refer to the SEF rules so everyone is best prepared as PT GV is a very tricky process as we all now know.
For comparison, I am at the tail end of a residence application in another country, where I went all out relying on my lawyer. A few reasons and differences from my approach to PT GV:
much lower investment amount so I was accordingly less concerned
much faster process so any exceptions/errors would quickly be known
official requirements listed but not in much details (e.g. no âSEF manualâ etc. to be found) so I would not be able to âfollow the rulesâ by myself
no English-speaking forum to rely on (or indeed any other language forum I could find)
the process is much less âdocumentationallyâ demanding for the applicant, e.g. no criminal records to supply etc.
Tommy, I never doubt your good intentions. I appreciate your willingness to stay with the governing documents to the letter. I only pointed out that these, despite their imposing and âwell-definedâ rules, are not ultimately firm and are open to interpretation/argumentation. This is where, just as you pointed out in your other experience, a good lawyer could make a huge difference between long delays and more âstreamlinedâ processing. That is why I encourage others to share their specific experiences to see how much the rules can be stretched and under which circumstances. Hopefully that would be of help to others as well who are yet to travel our paths.
