Donna M. Kelly

We had a very difficult experience working with Attorney Kelly. Although she was not our lawyer - she represented the sellers and we were buying the house - her behavior and practices were so egregious that in addition to all the stress she jeopardized the transaction and I feel compelled to warn oth...ers against using her. Based on my conversations with the sellers, Attorney Kelly did not keep them informed or provide them with accurate information, including blaming delays on our attorney that were in fact caused by her.

Buying a home can be stressful. As first-time home buyers, we were referred to Donna Kelly by our real estate agents (whom we liked and trusted). They had a working relationship with Ms. Kelly, I suppose. From the outset, Ms. Kelly seemed slow to respond to emails, some of them very time sensitive. W...hen she did respond, she was abrupt, officious and would offer no reason for her delay. When we finally got to the "accepted offer" stage, and it came time for us to secure financing, Donna put us in the hands of her colleagues at a large bank which proved woefully ill-equipped to deal with business owners applying for a mortgage. I don't know if I'm allowed to name that bank here, but it took them a loooong time struggling through the process, and Donna was of no assistance. When it became clear that it was not going to happen, I searched online and found a mortgage bank who was able to approve us in 11 HOURS, with a BETTER rate than the large bank was promising. (We are solvent business owners with excellent credit, so we do not know why the bank Ms. Kelly encouraged us to work with was unable to get the job done). Honestly, through the whole process, it seemed as though Ms. Kelly was working on a different timeline, in another era. We secured our funding, got to the 11th hour before closing, and Ms. Kelly emailed to inform me she has found a lien on the property. This was AFTER the home inspection, the appraisal, and excruciating months trying to work with the mortgage lender she sent us to. Icing on the cake? Her office misquoted the amount of her invoice by several hundred dollars, and two weeks after we received this bill (which was higher than we expected) we received an email from Ms. Kelly threatening "legal action" if we did not remit payment immediately. Extremely bad customer service, we just can't shake the feeling that this attorney just wanted to make her paycheck, and we were just another file in cabinet.