Your experiences with Paula Carello / Lux Brumalis?

[foobar]

Hi y'all!

I (German) am looking to move in together with my girlfriend (Argentine) around the end of this year. As we don't want to marry yet and I will likely be working as a freelancer, we've consulted Ms Paula Carello to get to know my options for getting a residency permit and eventually citizenship.

Now my problem is this: We've discussed multiple options and eventually chose to go on with applying for the rentista residency. Now she has been unresponsive for over a week. Last friday night she promised to send us the quote for the whole process on saturday but as it was so late and I didn't have time to review it last weekend I told her not to rush and send it to us some time this week. Since then I have not heard from her again except for this: On thursday I asked again when she estimates to be able to send us the quote. There she just replied "hello" at 2 am argentine time and nothing else.
This has happened three times so far. I ask a question, she replies only "hello" late at night and then nothing. Once she apologized and said it was too late (which I totally understand) but still she didn't get back to me the next day until I asked again.

My questions: Has anyone here experienced the same style of communication with her before? Is anyone currently processing their residency or citizenship application with her and if so, how is it going?
I'd totally understand if she's very busy and things take longer because of that, that's fine. But I am worried about the communication already being so scarce before even receiving the quote. When working with a lawyer I need to be able to trust them and for me trust mainly comes from good communication and knowing what's going on at every moment of the process.

Second set of questions: How would you go on in my case? My timeline with moving at the end of this year is already tight so I don't want to wait too long and am considering looking for a different lawyer (btw any suggestions?). On the other hand I've seen lots of positive reviews and recommendations for Ms Carello so I don't want to be impatient and move on too early.

Thanks to everyone providing some input on this!

 

[Silvie]

These are my 2 cents: I would assume you are contacting each other through whatsapp. If I were you, I would insist in calling her in real time or even better, via email, not through whatsapp messaging.

 

[foobar]

@Silvie Good idea, I have sent her an email again and am hoping to get a response this way. Initially I also contacted her via email but then she said it's faster and easier to reach her via whatsapp, that's why we switched over eventually.

 

[Alby]

My experience with lawyers (and escribanos) here and elsewhere in South America, across migration, employment, taxation, and property matters: they will never give you a lump-sum up-front quote, especially if the process is a multi-year one, like a residency "whole process" (although I have had them give me upfront verbal quotes for discrete parts of the process, later always honored in full, with no undisclosed add-ons). Weird, repeated, seemingly unprofessional emails are also not uncommon. The culture here is much more oral, and people are simply not accustomed, in many cases, to doing business in the way we might think is normal. I wouldn't rule someone out on the basis of the information you've presented. If the consensus is she is good and gets results, pay attention to that, rather than to style.