Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?

Neither my wife nor I have English as our mother tongue, but we use English to communicate to each other, which sometimes causes confusion.

My wife often uses the expression "until now" to mean "so far" or "yet", meaning that the action is not yet finished.

I didn't receive any answer from the landlord until now.

To me "until now" means that for some time she didn't get answer but now (recently), she did.

So I'll usually reply something like:

Nice, so what did he say?

And she looks at me weirdly, as if I would have asked something silly and we both laugh.

My question is. Does "until now" always imply that the action you are talking is now finished, or can sometimes be used with the same meaning as yet?

It is definitely a tricky expression for non-natives. The definition found in dictionaries can confuse them more:

UNTIL NOW
used in negative statement to describe a situation that has existed up to this point or up to the present time

• So far he hasn't called
• the sun isn't up yet (Freedict)

Wait, wait, what?

Barnaby Harward, an editor and language trainer at an EU agency, explains the confusion very clearly:

The phrase “until now” is often used incorrectly. This can result in a sentence having the opposite meaning to the one intended.

Consider the following sentence:

• Until now, the above documents and information have not been provided by the Banks.

What does the writer mean? Have the Banks provided the documents and information or not? A native English speaker would be likely to say yes. But the writer intended to say that they have not.

Retired teacher Paul Fanning sheds some light on the matter by comparing until now with up to now:

The difference is that until now means the period stops now, while up to now means it may continue. Consider:

• Everything has been going well until now.

This means everything is no longer going well. With up to now, by contrast, the possibility of everything going well into the future would exist.

Inexperienced English speakers very commonly use "until now" to express the meaning of "up to now". I know of no other expression meaning until now, but alternatives to up to now include to date, to this day (for historical events), ever since and so far. Note, though, that all expressions meaning “up to now” are emphatic – the very use of the present perfect verb tense (with has) is enough to convey the same meaning.

Barnaby Harward concludes his explanation saying that:

In English the phrase “until now” is used to refer to a change of circumstances where the change happens now.

• Until now I have never eaten sushi.

This means that it is the first time the speaker has eaten sushi. Until the present moment the speaker never ate sushi. NOW the speaker is eating sushi.

So there you go, these posts provide your wife with a variety of alternatives for the meaning she intends to convey.

PS: There's another post on Grammarphobia, Confused, until now, which addresses this same issue.