Documents for household import - atestado de residência

We are expecting our household goods to steam into some Portugal harbor in a few weeks, originating from the US. I have provided our shipping company with a variety of documents, including of course the certificado de bagagem, various signed declarations, NIF bearing my Portugal address, ... and an atestado de residência from my freguesia.

The shipping company representative says the atestado must "mention the date that you've started residing here in Portugal and that date must match with the date on the baggage certificate." Subsequently clarifying, with a date that's a few days later than the issuance of baggage certificate.

Well, after I bought the house, the real estate agent took us down to the freguesia office and we had a nice chat and got atestados. They're pretty old by now, like 10 months, and while they don't actually mention a date I started residing here, of course one might assume that would be before the document was issued. That wouldn't really be true, because we went right back to the US and started getting the applications together, but whatever.

So I'm supposed to get a new atestado that includes an initial date of residency - an item that is not in the freguesia's standard issue atestado - and I have to get them to accept this date without any supporting evidence (and in fact it isn't true, as they may well know.) I have mentioned this to that real estate agent, with whom we still have some business, and he said he'd get together with the president and see what he could do, but I imagine he has conveniently forgotten about it.

So ... it would be interesting to know how desperate I am. I mean, of course at worst, I have to pay VAT on the goods. But it would be interesting to know if anyone has been through this somewhat recently, and how big of a role the atestado played and whether the dates were as indicated. Thanks!