My wife has found someone to rent our Hong Kong property and so plans to move to PT. We were assuming that the family reunion visa would be the way to go but I've just had a meeting with the guy who did all of my paperwork five years ago and he said that D7 would in this case be better. He said that getting an appointment via the family reunion visa is problematic as the government office that carries out this task is not giving out any applications. He said I could be months or even a year or more to get the application. He said that we should communicate with a company called VFS Global and that they would process the paperwork in HK and once the visa is issued he could make an appointment for an interview in Portimao. Has anyone else gone via this route and if so how arduous was it?

hiya sportpix, we wnt down that D7 route, but from the UK, so it may work differently in HK, as far as I know it works differently in Manchester to what it does in London, so fully expect another variant in HK.

You do not need to employ anyone to sort this for you, once we where given the temporary 120 day visa stamp in our passports the consulate in Manchester made the appointment at what was SEF for us, although I believe even that has changed in the UK now, and you are given the stamp then told to make your own appointment with that is now AIMA, now that could be problematic.

VFS only start the biometric part for the consulate, they then send you to the consulate with your paperwork, at least that is how it worked in Manchester, apparently in London they do the VFS bit then send you home to receive an appointment from the consulate by one means or another.

Once you have satisfied the nearest consulate to you in HK and get the temporary visa sticker in your passport, as long as you can produce exactly the same documents once in PT then its a gimme from my/our experience........ we initially travelled without the sticker on the basis of a 'heads up' off of our case handler in Manchester, bit risky some ppl said but hey ho it worked out fine in the end.

It is time consuming and it took us about 11 months from arriving here in PT to getting to the actual SEF appt........... calma.....tranquila.........its not so much the bureaucracy but the 'state sponsored incompetence' that is the potential problem, if you see my post on renewal of the visa you will understand what I mean, although if you have been here a while you could probably tell more tales than me I am sure.

So yeah it is 'doable' and without employing anyone and spending any money, but like I said how it works in HK with VFS and how it worked in the UK is probably like comparing apples with oranges.

I am happy to be corrected here as well, but recently we looked at the 'family reunion visa' for our 21 yre old son, and from what I could summise, that visa if for an applicant under the age of 18, or a dependant family member like an old aged relative who needs to be cared for, that visa can be applied for from here in PT, but the D7 has to be started from the country of currect residence.

Not sure if that helped at all tbh, now that I have read it back to myself but essentially it was fairly stright forward for us barring the risk of leaving the UK without the stamp in our passports first.

Thank you for this. The whole thing is giving me stress that I don't want or need. As things progress (hopefully), I will post updates.

Thank you again

you are very welcome, and good luck

the list of documents required to satisfy the consulate is either on the VFS site or the gov.pt, cant quite remember which one now, but a full list was on one of them, and we also travelled with the EHIC card and didnt bother with insurance until we got here and sourced it locally........and the EHIC is free from gov.co.uk

we was told the EHIC was sufficient by our case handler and he processed it with the EHIC, thats another saving and less hassle, not sure how or if you qualify for the EHIC or if there is an alternative available to you from your current administration.

things are starting to move on the moving front but is looking costly. VFS has a large office in hk but they don’t handle Portugal. Applications from hk have to be done in Macau, which is a former Portuguese territory and has a consulate. The guy from the removal company said that other clients who have done what we are doing have engaged the service of a Macau lawyer to handle the paperwork, so I contacted a mate in Macau to get a referral. The removal company said that we have to get a document form the Macau consulate before they would ship our stuff so wife contacted a couple of the lawyers suggested by my mate and they are demanding one thousand pounds to issue the shipping document and a further two thousand pounds to handle the D7 application. It looks like will just have to pay up and get on with it.

sounds like you might just have to 'suck it up' to coin a phrase, which is a shame because I always like to keep my shekels in my back pocket and not somebody elses..... but hey ho, sounds like you have a plan formulated.

we didnt bring anything with us, just us clothes and dogs, so have no first hand experience of shipping large possesions, however we do know of two couples who have shipped stuff over, be very very careful amigo.

the first guy was an american from alaska, he shipped a container of stuff over and was quoted 1euro per meter storage whilst the container was in the dock awaiting clearance from customs, so he did his calculation based on he footprint of the container, what they didnt tell him was that it is per cubic meter hence a small fortune per day, from memory I think they wanted about 15k from him just for storing the container until it cleared customs, he played up a bit and they reduced it quite a bit.

the other couple where moving from Aus, his stuff cleared fairly quickly, his only gripe was the import duty to be paid on his own stuff that he had already paid VAT on in Aus, 1 container full but from memory I think the PT customs wanted about 7k euro's off of him just for the import duty........... so none of it straight forward, not wanting to add to your potential woes, but please bear it in mind.

Well, wife having been given the 28 January AIMA appointment at 9am in Queluz (Lisbon) we travelled by train on Tuesday so that we could recce the place and not have to search the following morning. Fortunately the current rotten weather held off for our arrival and also for the approx 1km walk to AIMA the following morning. I suggested to wife that we should get there ahead of schedule, and when we turned the corner to approach the entrance of the building there was half of west Africa and all of the Indian sub continent already lined up outside.

There was actually two entrances sort of facing each other and leading into a foyer. I decided to go to the other entrance and found mostly women with babies and infirm people there, and only about 10 percent of the number waiting at the other door. When the door finally opened a lady came out and gave instructions in Portuguese so I just politely approached and asked what we do if we already have an appointment. She was very helpful and said to follow her to the waiting room, so I waved to wife at the back of the other queue and she quickly joined me.

Inside it was very efficient and a nice man gave my wife a number and told her to watch the electronic board. Five minutes later her number came up and she went through to a booth. Five minutes after that she came through to find me and asked if I'd got a copy of our apartment deeds on my phone... Errr, no. Anyway, although she had the first page the guy wanted to see all six pages and he also asked to see our Santander bank statement. This is a little odd as only the first page of the deeds was needed at the Macau consulate and they were happy with our statements from our UK account.

As wife was travelling with her laptop the guy said to go back to the hotel and get the docs printed or else we would have to reschedule... No thanks, not another 300km journey and two nights in a hotel. So we went back to the hotel, got the docs printed and went back to AIMA. We were once again waved through the waiting hoards and taken back to the same guy who was then busy with someone else, and told us to go to another counter with a lady in charge.

And guess what? She wanted to see EVERY document again! The whole thing took about 45 minutes including the biometrics and my wife was eventually given a copy of a document with her picture on it. The lady said that this was not a legal document and that the ID card would be posted to our home address in one to three months. When my wife asked if she could travel with this document the lady said no, wait until your ID card comes through.

While I should happy that this part of the process went through more or less OK and we don't need to go back again my wife is insisting that she should travel to the UK in another month or so to visit our fourth grandchild, who is about three weeks away from being fully cooked. This is now giving me stress because she's been here for three months so her 90 days are up. If she goes to the UK and is not let back in again it will be something of a disaster. I need to put her off the idea but she is a very stubborn person.

I should point out that all of the people we dealt with at AIMA were very efficient and very pleasant to deal with. And of course all had excellent English skills.
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Anyway, thanks for the help and advice with all this. It's much appreciated.

I think it would be very risky for your wife to travel before the ID card comes through. She could take the paperwork she was given at the meeting with her and show it to border force but there's no guarantee they would accept it and allow her entry into Portugal. She would then be turned back at the border and would face no end of problems.

Something else to bear in mind is the passport stamp she (presumably) had on the way in which was more than 90 days ago. Could that be questioned?

I've no idea what happens at the UK end but somebody my sister knows was turned back at a UK airport because he had already used up his 90 days and was trying to board a flight to Spain before he was eligible for his next 90 day stint.

It's just not worth it so I would explain it to the family and hope they understand the difficult situation you find yourselves in.

great progress........ all good so far then

and I know whay you mean about the queue outside, more like a scrum if Porto was anything to go by, and yeah half of angola and cape verde outside.

hopefully the cards arrive soon, ours took 7 months, a guy next to us at porto had waited 6 months, and hopefully they arrive at your address, ours went to AIMA in Coimbra about 220km away......fingers crossed but a few potential banana skins yet........

Thanks AW. Just a thought, while you were waiting for your cards, did you travel outside of Portugal (UK, for example)? I've been told that my wife should be able to travel if accompanied by me, because as she is my wife she has the right to be here (despite coming in on a D7). My glass is always in the dregs - never mind about half full, so what can go wrong WILL always go horribly wrong.

It would be good if she did not have the urge to go and cuddle a new born granddaughter - apparently they smell special when they are new (the only thing I smelled when our kids were new was soaked and soiled nappies). Surely she could just relax and enjoy herself in the lovely Algarve sunshine... Well, she could if there was any and it wasn't constantly pouring with rain

ayup, no we did not travel out of PT whilst our cards where out of date, a total time of almost 14 months, if you count time trying to get an appt, time waiting for said appt, then time waiting for the cards to arrive.

not that we make a habit of travelling back to he UK ....through gritted teeth we visit the UK tbh........so no it wasnt a problem for us........... I have been back once in 5 years....... couldnt wait to get back to home in PT.

not that that helps you much eh.

Just on this one point.

If someone enters during the window allowed for either of the 2 entries permitted on a D7 visa, that doesn't start the Schengen clock ticking. It's outside the scope of the short stay rules.

Thanks Eric. My wife arrived in early November on a double entry D7 visa and has not left since. Does this mean that she can in fact make a trip to the UK on the second entry of the visa and not break any rules? If so she will be VERY happy to learn this. The unborn child is punching and kicking and demanding to get out so my wife could still get her wish of being there soon after it's born.

that one is way above my pay-grade Eric............ all yours

The validity start date of the visa is the date it was issued, as opposed to the date of the first entry into Portugal.

Will it still be within 120 days of that date when she intends to return to PT after the UK visit?