Joan Marie Fenstermaker

..same old story. I got my deposit withheld for absolutely no reason. I consulted with 3 other lawyers before Joan. It turned out; I’m in the worst possible combination of legal formalities. All of them basically advised me to give up because neither they or anyone else will move their fingers about ...it, unless I give nearly 3 times the amount, I fight for, just to start a case…, so unfair and frustrating! One of the lawyers at least recommended Ms. Fenstermaker to me. So I called her. For the next about 2-3 weeks, we spoke couple times by the phone and exchanged couple e-mails…so – no many empty talks. She also confirmed, I’m in a bad situation but didn’t say “no”, neither “yes”. As I said, she called me couple times, asked me couple questions….the third time Joan called me, she just asked me: where to send the check with my money back!!! Thank You!

After our children were found to have lead toxication and the city inspector found very heavy lead paint all throughout the building, it got increasingly difficult to communicate with our landlord, who obviously wanted to get rid of us as soon and easy as possible. Joan, from the first conversation ...on, listened very carefully and gave us the confidence that we were going to settle our issue in a very reasonable way and for very reasonable fees. Joan was friendly, patient, and pleasant to work with. I definitely recommend her as a tenant attorney!

I had an unusual situation and I turned to Joan after the first lawyer seemed to be more interested in making my case a class action suit he could use to publicize his own interests. She immediately focused on what I considered the real issues and she stayed on track. She took apart any argument my l...andlady and her lawyer attempted to make. I was very impressed with how aggressive Joan was willing to get! She quickly took the upper hand and she never let it go. She kept pounding away until we got everything in our list of demands! There have been no out of pocket costs to work with Joan. Joan is highly knowledgeable in the finest details of the RLTO and she knows how to apply it. A tenant in Chicago could not find a better advocate than Joan!

I hired Joan back in march of 2012 to help me get my security deposit back. My previous lanlord didn't notify me that they were planing on keeping my security deposit as a whole or portion. So I contacted Joan and she sent them the paperwork, within a few weeks they offered a settlement amount. So I ...was able to recoupe double my original deposit plus my attorney fees, which is standard in Illinois. She was very helpful, knowledgeble and friendly. In addition she was very fair with the fees as well. I liked the services she preformed so much that in my pursuit of purchasing a home, I chose Joan to help guide me along in the process. Turns out the contract with the sellers wasn't in my best interest so I decided to cancel it. But with that being said I will continue to use her services and refer her to anyone that I know that needs a real estate attorney.