Applied for a Golden Visa, bought a house, still waiting for my visa after 3 years and now they closed my bank account
So the Golden Visa was basically a triple whammy of a scam. I started the process with a law firm called Legal Square who assured me it would be granted in a few months. It’s been **3 years** and:
1. A real estate company called Era Realty sold me a house which was illegally constructed, straight up fraud against the terms of the agreement, and of course Legal Square who did the due diligence and represented me completely forgot to check this basic level of work, and said everything was okay with the property purchase. Has wasted 2+ years trying to get all the documentation to resolve this. Never trust Era, they literally lie through their teeth.
2. The golden visa application has literally not even received a single response, I’ve had to follow up a dozen times, and each time they give some bullshit new deadline which gets changed again a couple months later. They have made me gather all my documents and submit twice now, and it has not moved an inch. Seems like the government made it up.
3. My bank account was closed because I supposedly don’t have the right visa, making paying bills on the house I was required to purchase for the visa a huge pain. Have also been scammed by electricians and painters who basically did no work and charged a ton for it.
I’ve now re-submitted a D2 visa, which means the lemon real estate investment was completely pointless, and probably straight up fraud from either the lawyer or the government. Pretty unbelievable levels of grifts going on across the board.
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Comments3
Indigo Spacelab
May 28, 2025
You got the bio metric appointment for golden visa? I have applied in 2021, Got appointment in 2023 still waiting for the visa.
White Sunshine
May 26, 2025
did the house had a utilization permit?
Did the lawyer did the deed directly? The deed use to be done by a a official at “conservatória ou Notário”. But to acelerate the procedures, they let the lawyer do it, and some times he doesn’t know much about the subject and just want the quick money.
If the lawyer at the time of the deed didn’t check for the utilization permit, you can ask for civil responsibilities in civil court, and present a disciplinary claim against him in “ordem dos advogados” for the mistake. He also have an insurance that covers his mistakes responsabilities.
White Sunshine
May 26, 2025
I’m a Portuguese, recently bought a piece of land, and the registration of the tax categorie of the land was wrong. The lawyer of the real state agency mess up the entire thing. It took me 2 years to unravel all the mess. During that time, i also thought it was a scam.
A lot of what you think is grift, its actually a lot of incompetence, in a country where even the lawyers have difficulty to know how the law actually apply in the day to day, because, what is written, is not the same as the interpretation the different services have (i use to be a lawyer too).
Its worse than simple bureaucracy, its bureaucracy made by incompetents that don’t think about how the public will deal with such laws.
The country is getting better, but the democracy here is still very recent for us to have enough well educated “brains” in positions of power.