welcome to the wonderful country of 'Bureaucrats' captain flack !! Please try not to judge the country by these people..they are only doing their job which would send me screaming up the wall....Its virtually the same in any country by the way...once you step over that blue line and become the 'foreigner' Try getting into the USA...my D was grilled for 6hrs like a terrorist suspect when she had the temerity to return for the third time within 12months!! albeit on a fiancee's visa....They gave her 90 days..to get married!! so it works the other way too it seems...good luck and keep smiling

What rights? We're talking about a document to prove we are still married in order that my wife can obtain residency with me in Portugal. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her rights in Brazil. My point is that this document does not prove we are married, it only proves that Brazil (where we have never lived, we just got married there) are not aware we have been divorced. And since we've lived overseas, they'd have no idea if we had. So it's rather pointless getting them to issue this document if the purpose is to actually *prove* we're still married.

I understand perfectly. You fail to understand my point which is that the document does not prove what it is they're asking for it for.

They ask for this document to *prove* we are still married.

Now we have been living overseas since we were married. We could have got divorced in the UAE, or the UK (as I am still technically domiciled there). We could even have got divorced within the last 3 months, but produced a document from 5 months ago saying we are still married.

So, I have given two perfectly clear cases where we could produce a document to say we were married, which the SEF would accept, when in fact we were not married. So this document requirement is therefore pointless.

Sorry, but this is not a very good analogy. Your house is fixed to the ground. It stays in the same place. The original authority will always be the governing authority because the house is going nowhere - it remains in the same jurisdiction and subject to the same national law and central property register. People are not the same. Is it really that difficult to understand?

Er, please explain to me how the registrar in Brazil will know if I got divorced in the UK or the UAE? Go on, tell me? I am really curious? Magic? They will have no idea whatsoever. I do not live in Brazil, and I never have done. I just got married there. There is no way for them to know if I am married or not. ARGGGHHH. Is this really so hard to understand!?!?! Jeez.

But the certificate from Brazil reissued does not prove I am still married. Sure the SEF guy is happy, but I could have got the certificate reissued even if I was divorced. And he'd still be happy, even though it would prove I was married, even if I wasn't. You think this is *good* bureaucracy?

I got the document, and the SEF guy is happy. But like I said, it doesn't prove I am married. So I have got my wife residency, but the document I provided is bullsh*t because it doesn't prove we're still married. Go figure!!?

My brother is currently seeing an American girl, and is on his second trip in 3 months there now (for 6 weeks). I expect soon he will face similar problems.

I am not blaming the Portuguese or judging them based on this. I like it here, far more than the UAE where we lived for 8 years. At least we have rights here as Europeans, even if we have to jump through hoops for them.

But as a business owner (in two countries, but not here yet), I do see so much potential for Portugal - costs are relatively low, there are a lot of well educated people here. It just seems if they reduced some of the bureaucracy, it would be so much more attractive to invest and to work here. It's a really nice place to live, and to bring up a family.

We've had to jump through all kinds of hoops to ship personal belongings in from the UAE, including documents from the Portuguese embassy in the UAE to prove we owned our possessions for more than 6 months and that we lived there for more than one year. They don't know how long we owned the stuff, we just produce a list and pay a fee and they put a stamp on it which costs 30 EUR or so and requires a day trip to Abu Dhabi. Again, it proves nothing really.

And forget about importing our car... we could get it tax free, but it would be virtually impossible to register to drive on Portuguese roads.

By contrast, my brother moved back to the UK. He filled his hummer up with stuff, deregistered it in the UAE (they put short duration export plates on it so he can drive it to shipping agent), nothing from UK embassy required. He just provides the shipping guys in the UK with the receipt from the UAE car dealer showing when he bought it, and an inventory of the personal possessions he had packed in the car, and for a total of about 2k GBP he gets his car and all his stuff into the UK (tax and duty free), the car undergoes a basic test and MOT, and now he's happily (or not) doing 21 MPG around the roads of Surrey.

In Portugal you have to smile a lot. take a deep breath, pile copies of papers 1 metre thick in front of people - in triplicate, and look like you're never going to move unless you get what you want.
Then it all seems to end happily
We can't speak much Portuguese and registered a car with very few problems

Take a deep breath, get organised, and smile

Ease or difficulty of getting something done seems (at least partly) to vary from office to office, person to person & day to day.

I imported (from South Africa) & registered my classic car without any hassles at all but importing 2 firearms has taken over 2 years, hundreds of miles travelled, thousands of pounds spent & it's still an ongoing process for me.

It's driving me nuts but I flatly refuse to give up!