Marilyn J Palumbo reviews

I was recently entangled in a real estate deal in NY that I felt was handled wrong by my attorney, I just could not place my finger on the wrong doings, but I just felt that I was being taken advantage of.

I liked my attorney as a person, but the way she handled my deal felt unethical. Who was supposed to protect my interests from the attorney’s wrong doings? No one.

Here was the situation-

My attorney wrote me, 'We completed a closing and the deal fell thru at the last second.' 

 The closing obviously was not completed. I paid for a closing of $500.  It does not matter how much work the lawyer did.  The outcome for which I paid did not happen.

This lawyer is skilled in twisting words.  They did not 'complete a closing'. 

Did I mention that the lawyer were charging me an extra $500 for changing the name of the buyer on the contract?  Not for redoing ALL their work? 

The huge issue in this whole process was my neighbor had a garage that was on my property line for nearly 30 years. This is how the attorney handled this issue.

After weeks of back and forth with the neighbor asking him to remove the garage, he my neighbor refused, or did not have the money to move it. He asked the attorney to send him a formal letter to move the garage. I also asked her to do this for him; to write a formal letter. There was never a formal letter sent to my neighbor. 

At the last minute, the lawyer's representative even went so far as to visit your neighbor whose garage was on my property.  The paralegal went over, yelled at my neighbor, and pretended to be a lawyer at first, then changed her wording afterwards.

Marilyn, told me to put the garage on craigslist to have it removed. I did as she asked. I only received hate emails from my neighbors family and friends. I could feel the hate through my walls. I just wanted to leave this house behind and all the heartache that I suffered while living in NY. And a no trespassing sign was put on the garage by my neighbor. Then no one would touch this garage. 

I was told that my closing could not go through if the garage was not removed from my property line. However after waiting several extra weeks, the closing went through for the second buyer. Which that whole process baffled me. 

Trying to make me feel humbled by saying that my mother 'would be appalled at your treatment of me (lawyer)'  is unprofessional to say the least.

Stating "we provided you with excellent service" when I don’t even have in writing the 'letter they sent' to my neighbor stating that 'you have x days to remove the garage from the G*** property'?  Because there was no letter? There was only a map of my property lines were sent to my neighbor.

My perspective of excellence and her own are completely different I guess. 

I also had to contact the town and county on my own, because I wanted to get to the bottom of this situation with the garage. 

The town and county knew about the garage, but refused to do anything about it.

There was never a permit issued for the garage.

What about your claim that your lawyer wanted to be paid her fee BEFORE the closing took place?   I have a feeling that she wanted that $500 for the first 'closing that was to make sure she would be paid twice.   THAT was the moment to ask her, "Why do you want to be paid $500 for a closing? I refused to give her a check before the second closing took place. She still removed the money from my final check from the sale of my house. I told her that it was extortion. That she would not finish my closing without me paying her twice. I was actually scared through this whole situation. 

I should have hired my real estate suggested attorney. Kevin Johnson 585-637-3911 (his rule is only charge the client once if the first closing fell through) 

There was NO closing for the first buyer who backed out of the deal. I should not of had to pay twice.

This was not my fault, what happens if I had several closings back out. I would have had to pay and pay and pay. If I had known this from the very beginning, I would not have hired this attorney.


I also asked the lawyer to send me a detailed bill of the cleaning fee the new buyer charged me. I never got one. 

I also felt that when she handled my mothers death, that her bank account was never closed, so we lost around $500 from that account. Marilyn did not seem to do much to close my mothers accounts, the executor did it all. Marilyn just held onto the death certificates. So at the end of life, you as an executor really must not need an attorney. Marilyn charged my family $1500 to do what. I am not really sure. 

We were a poor family that my mother saved and saved from her very small checks to put money away for us. To then have the lawyer drag more money out of me, just felt wrong.

Much of what I had to say was from my perspective and how I experienced the situation, I am sure it is clouded in feelings. I did my best to state the facts and have others decide what is best for them and their families when choosing an attorney to handle legal matters for them.