Were You Told About Portugal Golden Visa Processing Delays Before Investing ?

Residencies & citizenships Portugal Golden Visa
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I invested €350,000 in the Mercan Lisboa Park (Moxy Lisbon Park) project in January 2022.

At the time I invested, I was not informed that the Portugal Golden Visa program was already experiencing significant processing delays and that applicants could end up waiting years before biometrics or approval.

Had this information been disclosed, it would have affected my investment decision.

I’m trying to determine whether others had a similar experience.

Please share:

• When you invested

• Which developer, promoter, or law firm you used (if you’re comfortable sharing)

• Whether anyone disclosed the processing delays before you invested

• Your current application status

I’m also interested in discussing whether there may have been a broader failure to disclose material information to investors during this period.

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I invested in one of Mercan’s projects in Oct 2021, and I too was not aware of any delays that were currently affecting processing times, and in fact was told everything would be complete in 10 months. They’re timelines on everything have been wrong (of course favoring them, such as the delayed construction meaning no returns). I also was not advised the precarious nature of this impending vote when my residency card was actually ready, or I would have never spent $7k on a useless plastic card that now is completely moot because of all the changes rendering my Oct 2026 eligibility for citizenship to now be Sept 2035. I am focused solely now on shutting down every effort put into Portugal and alerting as many investors as possible to the complete dysfunction, lack of accountability, lack of stability that this entire process has caused from the start. I could never imagine putting any faith into the legal systems of Portugal at this point, and am thankful that this happened finally to give closure to this entire wasted limbo I’ve been in for four years.

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I did a simple google search prior to investing thousands of dollars like I would with any other investment.

The first 1000 hits on google indicate delays, inefficiencies, real-life horror stories. To be honest, the only positives are the companies shilling their programs.

It’s your responsibility to do your due diligence.

For me, the long wait times, moving goal posts, etc. did not outweigh the benefits of moving forward. Our goals may be different than others though.

Cheers.

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Due diligence is only one side of the equation. The other side is the legal duty to disclose material information that is known to the seller, promoter, or their representatives and that a reasonable investor would consider important before investing.

If a company knew the SEF processing system had materially deteriorated and continued marketing these investments without adequately disclosing that information, telling investors to “Google it” is not a legal defense. Material disclosure obligations exist precisely because sellers often possess information that is not readily available to the public.

Mercan is a Canadian company. Many investors are from jurisdictions such as the U.S. and Canada, where investor protection and disclosure laws are well established. Portuguese law also recognizes duties of good faith and can impose liability for misleading omissions in contractual negotiations.

That is the issue I’m investigating, not whether investors should have searched harder, but whether information known to those taking our money was withheld from us before we invested. If multiple investors experienced the same thing, that deserves careful examination.

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And when did you invest then?

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I first started discussions with Mercan in late December 2021 and invested during the first quarter of 2022.

Since then, I’ve obtained email communications from the IAS lawyers that indicate they were aware of the SEF processing delays before I invested. That information was never disclosed to me before I committed €350,000. If information of that nature was known at the time, I believe it was material and should have been disclosed to prospective investors before they made their investment decisions.

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I’m in the same boat, as I invested in August of 2021 applying in October 2021 and they maintained 10 months as the timeline in their marketing materials and talking points with me.

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Benjamin, one quick question. When did you actually sign the investment agreement and wire your funds—what month and year? I’m trying to compare investors’ timelines against what Mercan and IAS knew at the time each investment was made.

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So I think some historical context is important here. SEF was dysfunctional prior to 2022 as well, but most people didn’t wait nearly the amount of time that become commonplace for those applying in late 2021 onwards.

The main issue until the end of 2021 was that SEF opened up biometric appointments for booking at certain unpredictable dates, which immigration lawyers snatched up for their clients as soon as possible. All the appointments would be gone in less than an hour at best.

However, it was speculated at the time that some law firms snatched up more than even the appointments they needed, then cancelling them maybe a day or two prior to the appointment when it was clear that they weren’t able to use it—if they even cancelled it at all.

The bigger firms had paralegals basically refreshing the SEF booking calendar day in and day out to snatch up appointments that others cancelled. From what community members shared on Nomad Gate back then, IAS/Mercan were really good at getting people these last minute appointments. Many community members shared stories about flying their families to Portugal and asking IAS to try to get them last-minute appointments. From what I heard, I think their success rate was close to 100% back in 2021.

So basically, until the end of 2021, the delays you experienced were much more a product of how good your law firm was at getting you biometric appointments. If your lawyer was just passively waiting, you could be waiting years. But with a more active lawyer snatching up last-minute cancellations, your total time to your first residence card could indeed be less than 12 months.

(Side note: I even made a python script back in 2021 or so to monitor the situation. The script just checked each of the SEF locations for any availability once per second, and then logged the presence of any available appointments. IIRC, most appointments would be gone again just seconds later.)

I’m not 100% certain about the dates, but I think October 2021 was the last time SEF released a big batch of appointment slots, with last minute cancellations being possible to snatch up until the end of December 2021.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s now clear that wait times just kept growing longer and longer after the introduction of the new chronological system from 2022. However, with the knowledge we all had back then, that definitely wasn’t a given. The theory went that since many appointments went unattended under the previous system, a chronological system would help reduce missed appointments and overall be more fair.

Of course, we now know how it all went (even more) to shit since then.

And I don’t want to give various GV promoters a free pass here, but I do think it was much less egregious to claim 12 months to card in 2021 or even early 2022 than it was a couple of years later.

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29 September 2021

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When I talked to lawyers in Q1 2021, I was told it would take ~18-24 months from first application to card issuance. I applied in June 2021, pre-approval in end June and my lawyer snatched an appointment in July for end Aug. I couldn’t make it. I knew a friend who applied in later June 2021, attended biometric appointment in late Aug, got his card in Jan/Feb 2022. So <12 months is possible.

The random SEF slot opening was stopped around Aug 2021. I was assigned an appointment for July 2022 and had card issued in June 2023. So 24 months.

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I think the real issue isn’t whether SEF had delays, it is whether material information known to the promoter and its lawyers was disclosed before investors signed contracts and transferred their money.

Portuguese law, like the laws of most developed jurisdictions, recognizes duties of good faith and disclosure during pre-contractual negotiations. In my case, I have emails showing IAS knew about the SEF delays before I invested in early 2022, yet that information was never disclosed to me before I committed €350,000.

I’m interested in hearing whether other investors had the same experience. If so, that points to a broader pattern rather than an isolated case.

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We would need to be shown exactly what they said/stated to you. The “failure to disclose” argument can be tough if the information is publicly available - as it is in this case. Hence my original google search / due diligence statement.

If there are caveats in their statements such as “in most cases we see it taking 12-18 months” or “future timelines are subject to change” etc. then they may be covered. The issue is that SEF/AIMA is so random that there are cases of people getting cards in the timelines pitched by these companies while others can wait 5 years. So they are not wrong. The question is are they misleading? Depends on their caveats.

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Your efforts to warn other investors are extremely commendable, thank you for putting your word out there, even if just one or two people realize the reality of things from the word you spread, you’re saving those people an immense amount of misfortune especially if they make plans with kids involved.

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I agree that the exact representations made to each investor matter, which is precisely why I’m collecting evidence rather than opinions.

In my case, I have contemporaneous emails showing what IAS represented before I invested and what they knew internally at the time. I’ve had those communications reviewed, and they have been viewed as very significant from a legal perspective. Whether they satisfied their disclosure obligations is ultimately a matter for the courts and not internet debate.

I’m interested in determining whether other investors received similar representations before signing contracts and transferring funds.

Regards,

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Thank you, I sincerely appreciate your support.

I’m also trying to determine whether there was a consistent pattern in what different investors were told before they invested. If there was, that could be important. The more documented experiences we gather, the clearer the picture becomes.

If our discussion helps people make informed decisions or helps establish what investors were actually told, then it’s well worth the effort.

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I was given a Golden Visa timeline chart in July 2023 before I committed to an application in Aug 2023. See the attached picture from IAS/Mercan.

I understand that delays may happen due to the upcoming increase of investment amount from 280k EUR to at least 350k EUR resulting in a glut of last minute applicants (I am one of them.) However, the recent law changes means investors money were taken by Portugal, but the ‘time value of the money’ was dismissed when counting towards PR or citizenship, is absolutely not ethical, and breach my very basic trust to the State of Portugal of how the state treat ‘foreigners with funds’. Investment has time value - that is simple and universally understood by the business world, and Residence by Investment is a BUSINESS TRANSACTION between applicants and the State of Portugal, when money transfers between parties.

Mercan’s Investment Agreement has terms that investment can be redeemed by the end of 6 years, plus 180 days processing time. However, my recent communication with IAS indicates that ‘redemption before PR is granted, might jeopadize your eligibility for PR status’. This means - our investment with Mercan is contingent and tied to the endless bureaucratic delays by the State of Portugal, being used in Portugal economy ‘interest free’ for unknown length of time, entirely controlled by the State of Portugal, with a backfire hidden clause. This is absolute BS to me.

golden visa timeline chart.pdf (422.6 KB)

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One other point is that part of the projected return on the investment comes from the free hotel rooms offered by Mercan. My understanding is that these benefits are only available once the residence card has been issued. Given that card issuance is currently taking 3-4 years, the value of this benefit is significantly reduced. Mercan does not incur the cost of providing the rooms, so profitable for them.

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Chris, I agree. The free-room benefit is only one piece. Mercan has also had the benefit of investors’ capital during a highly inflationary period, while investors received little or no meaningful return and may now be forced to keep capital tied up even longer because of government delays and rule changes. That is a real economic benefit to the promoter and a real loss to investors

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I would be surprised if there are no lawsuits from Mercan investors vs AIMA for GV PR 90 days +5 years after initial GV application (to exercise the buyback 6 years after investment, as opposed to 10-15 years after investment). Otherwise, a 4-year wait for the first card would mean interest-free money for Mercan for extra 4 years.

Of course, because of conflict of interest, IAS will never file this lawsuit on behalf of its thousands of Mercan clients. The revised Nationality Law was a blow to Mercan “clients” (investors, people on the other side of a transaction—Mercan would argue no fiduciary duty), but undoubtedly it was a win for Mercan.