We have been working directly with the Immigration Department and the Foreign Ministry in order to get a visa for one of our key employees to move here from former Yugoslavia. Everyone in the government here has been wonderful, and the Honorary Consul of Uruguay in Hungary has been incredible. Everything was set for the visa approval to be issued this week and our employee to be here next week.

Then we were stopped dead in our tracks.

Our employee had to be invited here for employment purposes by our local Uruguay company, which we had organized almost a year before we moved here. And there’s the glitch!

In Uruguay, when a company is formed, (which is done here by accountants, not lawyers) you have to specify what business(es) it will engage in. In UY you can’t use the standard “any lawful business” which is used everywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world–here you have to be very specific.

We didn’t know this–worse, the company formation service we used, Asiaciti Trust didn’t tell us–even worse, even though they knew we were a financial services group they organized the company as a real estate holding company–worse than worse, we fired Asiaciti after a series of stupid mistakes and hired the Carlos Picos Accounting firm to correct everything–worser than worst, they didn’t fix this key issue or even tell us about it–most worstest, the Immigration Department has stopped the visa because a “real estate holding company” doesn’t need Serbian employees…..
When I found this out, I am afraid my composure cracked, but only slightly–the rumor that two merchant sailors walking by the house upbraided me for my language is NOT true–it was only one sailor.

Now for the good news. Our current accountants, the firm G.P. & Asociados, are wonderful. They identified the problem and are organizing the corrections on a fast track basis. Our office manager, Santiago (AKA Jimbo to give him a good Southron name), has talked to the government and explained that the ignorant gringos have been abused by their contadores (accountants), that the situation has been corrected to reflect the true nature of the company, and that it really does need a Serbian employee,

Thus far, in all of our dealings with them the government here has been very helpful, so I have great confidence that this problem will be resolved favorably next week. I will let you know. If something goes sideways, you will hear the scream all the way to Minnesota.

Lastly, I cannot help but recall that we spent two years and tens of thousands of dollars trying to get the same employee a visa for Costa Rica, without any success at all.