Kiwi national resident in the UK moving to Portugal

[Portugal]

Hi all,

After weeks of frustration and desperation I hope to find some advice and answers on this forum. My partner, a New Zealand citizen and myself, a Portuguese national, are both residing in the UK (London). We have decided to move to Portugal this summer and have since encountered one problem after the other. He is basically applying for a residence visa for Portugal which is valid for 4 months. During those 4 months he will have to apply for a residence permit. As we are having to go through the General Portuguese Consulate in London we send them an e-mail (as the telephone number is virtually non-existent) and were issued with an application form and the documents he will need to submit. This is where the problem starts. The information is very unclear and ambiguous and when we tried to obtain clarification they would just send an email with the same document as a reply. We have tried all sort of contacts, from the SEF (the agency responsible for immigration) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, different Portuguese Consulates in the World, embassies, ... and all that people tell us is that we have to contact the consulate here in London. I would love to do that but they wouldn't even let me in because I didn't have an appointment. When I said I did try to book one through the designated number and email but had not obtained a reply all they did was for me to try it again.
My partner wants to apply on the grounds of showing that he has enough funds to support himself and that he owns a house in NZ, one of the criteria given by the document that the Consulate send us (independent means or capital investment). But apparently you can't apply under that criteria? Has anyone had experience with this? And is it the Consulate or the SEF who will grant the visa (decide whether he can have it or not)?

The best is if we could apply from within Portugal on the basis of a de facto relationship (as I am Portuguese), but we have only been cohabitating for a year (and only had an actual signed contract for approx. 8 months).
After dialling a very expensive number we finally managed to get an appointment to apply for the visa on the 8th of July. But now we don't actually know if we will have the correct documents or suffice proof to apply successfully for the visa. We did try calling other Portuguese consulates in the world but they said that each consulate has different sub-criteria!!

Another problem is that we are going to Portugal on the 28th of July when our lease runs out and we don't know if the Portuguese consulate here in London will keep his passport during the application process (which would mean that he wouldn't be able to go) and could be stranded for up to 60 days.

So, any advice or experience or contacts you can share with us would be much appreciated. I will definitely keep posting to help any future applicants.

M.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Are you working in the UK?

Tell us more about the kind of relationship you have with your partner. Do you have children, for instance? Investments together? Joint bank accounts? Have you considered getting married?

Does your partner need to work in Portugal?

Why are you going to Portugal?