# Red tape nightmare - please help!



## notlongnow (May 21, 2009)

We really need some help. We are jumbled up in a ridiculous Portuguese red-tape situation and if we can’t resolve it we are going to end up having to leave Portugal—either due to the fact we can’t sort it out or because we simply cannot deal with any more stress….(and melodramatic as that may sound, I am being serious….)

Basically, when we got our residency, Tavira, for some reason which no one has yet been able to fathom, we were only given one year (we are both British EU citizens).

Our one year residency expires on 11th June. Tavira Camara are refusing to renew it unless we have my wife’s work contract translated into Portuguese and produce a “declaracao da segranca social com os descontos efectuados” from the securanca social, which I think basically confirms that we don’t owe any social security.

The social security is where it gets tricky. My wife is employed by a UK company and works over a remote connection on a UK server. She is payrolled in the UK but has an NT tax code—her UK company deducts National Insurance but pays her salary gross of tax, and all of our income has been declared properly via a Portuguese tax return.

The EU law puts my wife in a grey area, but does seem to suggest that she should pay SS here instead of NI, but as her company is UK based, no mechanism exists here for her to pay it—she isn’t self employed, nor is she employed by a Portuguese company.

My situation is slightly more straightforward as I am self employed – last year I was an employee of my own UK Ltd company, and therefore in exactly in the same position as my wife, but I am now in the process of registering for green receipts, which will mean I then pay Portuguese social security. There is an extra problem there now though, as the seguranca social want a copy of MY residency before completing my registration!

Our accountant says the SS issue should be fine, due to an EU reciprocal arrangement, but I am terrified that if we go to the seguranca social, they are going to want Portuguese SS for the whole of the past year, which we cannot give them as the UK have already had it!

The only thing that is really causing a problem is the requirements the camara are giving us to renew the residency. The EU website, the British consulate and SEF’s OWN website, say that all we should need to provide for a 5 year residency is a declaration that we can support ourselves and our passports. Indeed, our relatives who are in Olhao municipal area did just this, and it was a 5 minute job. Our accountant tells us “yes, they are difficult in Tavira.”

We have a lawyer working on it, but to no avail, and are already on our third accountant after the first two just advised us to “stay under the radar.” Something perhaps we should have listened to.

All we have tried to do since we got here is do everything by the book, as our 11,000€ tax bill proves. We have followed all the advice we have been given and we still seem to be screwed.

The EU website states that not having a valid residency is not a justifiable reason to kick us out of the country, but we are not willing to stay here past the expiry date.

All of this goes very much against EU freedom of movement law but we don’t know where to turn – would the British consulate help? 

Any advice, help, support would be very much appreciated, but please refrain from comments like “you shouldn’t need THAT to get residency – WE KNOW!!!”
Help


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## lulu83 (Jun 8, 2011)

That is a very tricky one I think I would be inclined to go to the British consulate before it gets to late and see what they can advise.


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