Dear Editor,
I have just been reading your article in March in relation to UK residents who have holiday homes in Portugal.
We have owned a property in the Algarve since 2010. We also own a boat which we have moored in Vilamoura Marina. We love spending time in Portugal and have missed it dearly in the past year with the pandemic.
Unfortunately, due to illness and the pandemic, we were not able to apply for residency before Brexit and now find that we are not able to meet the D7 visa requirements as we are semi-retired but have a property investment business we run in the UK, which means we need to come back and forward on a regular basis.
Under D7 requirements, we need to spend six months and one day consecutively in Portugal to be a resident.
As a result of Brexit, it now means that we cannot come to the villa as often as we would like. We are hoping to be able to come in June and stay until September but, at that point, we will need to go home for at least three months before we can come back.
It is disappointing as we want to be able to spend time in our favourite country and spend money in the bars/restaurants and enjoying our holiday home but will be prevented from doing so because of the 90 in 180-day rule.
This is obviously detrimental to the use of our holiday home and there will be many who feel it is not worth having a home abroad if they are not able to use it freely when they wish.
We would love to see a new rule introduced for homeowners in European countries, particularly for us in Portugal. In the coming years, as we become fully retired, we would like to spend more and more time in the country and invest in its economy and to be prevented from doing this is very disappointing.
If there is any pressure that can be put on authorities to make changes to this policy, we would really appreciate it.
Caroline and Neil Kirkpatrick
