"Proffesionals" in Cascais area

Hi all,
writing to see what feedback any of you have who have used so called "professional" services in the area, in my particular case, Solicitors, Accountants and Doctors.

All these people have the notion they should be referred to as Dr(a). as some kind status, while of course normal for a medical doctor, the rest are just a throw back to when the majority of the 'povo' could neither read nor write and anyone who could was revered, obviously not the case today, anyway I digress.

Solicitors, I will deal only with that race in this post as the stories are a bit long winded.

Maybe I have just been unlucky we worked with a solicitor who assisted very well when we first moved and arranged the purchase of our first house and got our NIF etc., the writing was probably on the wall at that time but we thought hey give him the benefit of the doubt he may be really busy, but as months passed his lack of response to emails in particular and laterally phone calls became very concerning, especially since the main topic of our enquiries was my wife's residency application, over more than 1 year I asked repeatedly for updates on the situation only to be told it takes time and cannot be hurried, during which time my wife had to return to Brazil for a short trip to renew her passport, on return she was stopped by the SEF in Lisbon airport and held there until I went to there office at the airport and spoke to them (via door intercom, they do not allow you into the office there) and explained she was my wife, I am citizen of the EU and she has applied for residency in Portugal, she was then released but advised she should not leave the country again until her residency was finalised ( wrong of course).

We went straight to the solicitors office and he said it was mistake by the SEF and if she travelled out of Portugal again he would get some declaration for her to carry and present on return, which he did on a later trip to Sweden, but it was not a document from SEF it was written and stamped by another lawyer and had to be re written as the details dates and personal data were all wrong on the first go of this declaration.........."professional".

Finally last month after waiting almost 18 months we started calling his office again to get some kind of idea what the progress was, he did not answer any calls and did not respond to SMS or emails or messages left with his receptionist, finally my wife went to his office where his receptionist said he would be on holiday from the end of that week for 3 weeks, she left a message for him to contact her as a matter of urgency and also enquired if previous messages had been delivered to him, she said they had been.

No contact from him and he duly closed the office and went on holiday, with this my wife decided to go direct to SEF in Cascais to enquire about her process, and there the bomb, after waiting to be seen she was informed that NO APPLICATION for residency had ever been lodged in her name, nothing at all, the lady searched all data base parameters with name options and spellings and DOB which she said is the most accurate, but nothing, NADA.

My wife immediately called the solicitor who was on holiday and left a message for him advising of the result of her visit to SEF, and followed up with SMS and email with the same info and asked for some explanation, of course to date nothing back by way of excuse or explanation, simply ignored.

She went and found another solicitor in Cascais who also went to SEF to find out if any application of any sort had been made in my wife's name, and received the same reply, NADA, my wife asked her to take up this process which she agreed to do and within 3 days had an interview marked in SEF.