11/08/2022
Delays in golden visas: investor takes SEF to court and wins.
The chaos in the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) remains installed. Between January and mid-June, foreign investors were prevented from submitting their applications for golden visas due to the unavailability of the platform, as advanced by idealista/news.
Now, the platform is up and running, but the waiting time for appointments – a necessary step to obtain a visa – has skyrocketed, having more than doubled since the Covid-19 pandemic . An investor can wait up to 18 months for the meeting with the SEF. Faced with this scenario, a foreign investor decided to take the SEF to court. And the judge ended up agreeing with him and ordered the SEF to speed up his process. This decision belongs to this particular case and “it is an important precedent that can be used as a paradigm to guide the judgment of similar cases”, analyzes Bettino Zanini, the lawyer who led the process, to idealista/news.
To better understand how obtaining golden visas through real estate investment – or any other type of investment – works, we explain the process in stages with the help of lawyer Bettino Zanini, an immigration specialist:
First, the application for golden visas must be submitted to the ARI Portal (Residence Authorization for Investment) of the SEF – which, incidentally, was unavailable between January and mid-June, causing several constraints to investors and professionals;
Afterwards, the same application will be analyzed by SEF specialists, an evaluation that took an average of two to three months - but now, the waiting time is longer than eight months.
Once the application is approved, investors can schedule a date at the SEF for the delivery of the legally required documentation and the collection of their biometric data. And at this stage, foreign investors could choose from several dates close to approval. But after the pandemic, vacancies became scarce and now successful candidates wait months until they receive an email to schedule an appointment .
“The substantial increase in the waiting time between making the investment and obtaining the residence permit has been one of the factors that keep foreigners from investing in Portugal”, lawyer Bettino Zanini
“The waiting periods between approval and scheduling have increased considerably”, reports Bettino, noting that the first dates available in the SEF are for almost six months after approval. It turns out that “ golden visa investors are looking for a prediction of how long the process might take. And a procedure that took 6 or 8 months, took 18 months or more after the Covid-19 pandemic”, informs the jurist specializing in these topics.
Delays in residence permits
Court condemns SEF to speed up investor golden visa process
Families that make large real estate investments in Portugal, with a view to obtaining residence permits in the country , make significant decisions in their lives based on the deadlines given by the SEF. As was the case with the foreign investor who took the SEF to court.
It was in December 2021 that the English citizen , a client of Bettino Zanini, decided to invest 350 thousand euros in a real estate investment fund in Portugal for the purpose of a residence permit. And “he was already prepared to wait eight months until he had his residence permit issued and moved to Portugal with his family”, says the lawyer in statements to idealista/news. With this change in mind, the foreign citizen “planned to leave his country of residence to come and live in Portugal ”: he rented a house, enrolled his daughter in school and left the country where he lived.
“Investors choose to invest substantial capital and with that they expect to be treated with seriousness and predictability”, Bettino Zanini, attorney
With the investment made, the investor applied online at the SEF ARI Portal at the end of 2021 to obtain residency in the country. And, from then on, the deadlines began to slip: “The waiting time for the entire procedure, which was already long, increased”, comments Bettino Zanini. After five months, the investor was still waiting for the approval of the first stage and that was when he decided to proceed with a lawsuit in court against the SEF. Especially because expectations were not the best in terms of waiting times: “Investors who were being approved at that moment were still waiting long months until they got their appointments ”, he details.
The case was filed in court on April 11, 2022. And, in July, the lawyer received the judge's final decision: the SEF would have to analyze and decide on his client's golden visa application and, if the application met all the criteria, he would have to make an appointment available for the investor and his family within 10 days, so that they could deliver all the required documentation and collect the biometric data. “Like us, the client was very satisfied with the decision rendered by the Administrative Court of the Lisbon Circle”, the lawyer also shared with idealista/news.
Court condemns SEF
Is the court ruling on golden visas valid for other cases?
Asked whether the court's position in this golden visa process can be applied to other similar processes, Bettino Zanini clarifies that the "decision applies only to this case". But “this is an important precedent that can be used as a paradigm to guide the judgment of similar cases”, he emphasizes.
And this case also warns the competent authorities to look at the long waiting time that investors face, because, in fact, this scenario “is very harmful to the program that aims to attract foreign investment in Portugal and boost the economy of the country ”. country".
It should also be noted that foreign citizens have to pay large amounts to gain access to residence permits. “Each investor pays almost 6 thousand euros in fees for the issuance of their residence permits, which is much higher than other types of residence permits, [but] in return they receive a lower quality service with much longer delays than the others. cases”, highlights the immigration specialist.
Investing in real estate via golden visas
Obtaining golden visas: what are the main obstacles faced?
The golden visa program has been one of the Government's flags to attract foreign capital to the country in recent years. But there are several problems it faces, in addition to waiting times. We note each of them, point by point:
Change to the golden visa program at the beginning of 2022: since January 1, 2022, real estate investment is prohibited, directly, to the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto and the coast of the country in an attempt to promote investment in the interior;
Extinction of the SEF: this is a process that has been dragging on for several months and has caused labor instability and constraints, namely in terms of the reduction of human resources ;
ARI platform frozen for months: from January to mid-June 2022, the platform to apply for a residence permit via investment was stopped, presenting a message saying that this type of investment “lacks regulation”, such as investigated and reported, at first hand, idealista/news. During those months, “investors who had made an investment in real estate (within the permitted areas and conditions) were not able to submit their applications online”, recalls the lawyer. But the Government ended up clarifying that the new rule (referring to the territorial limitation of investment) was immediately applicable and did not depend on regulation . In mid-June, the platform returned towork.
Foreign investment in Portugal
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With the ARI platform frozen for more than five months, “those who invested in January 2022 stayed until June waiting for the situation to be resolved and now have to wait another 18 months until they have their residence permits ”, points out the expert.
“There are several investors in this situation and the Government needs to make an effort to analyze and decide these procedures within an acceptable time, but the delay has been growing and little has been done to streamline these procedures”, says Bettino Zanin
And he warns that the consequences of this situation – and of all the recent chaos at the SEF – could alienate investors , denigrating the image of Portugal, and lead them to invest in other countries: “A foreign investor always analyzes other countries where he can invest before opt for Portugal, which has a very interesting program compared to other countries. The waiting time between one phase and another has acted as a disincentive to foreign investment for the purposes of the golden visa , which is an important driver of the country's economy”, he concludes.
