Jeffrey R Bergstrom

Upon the recommendation of our practice broker, in 2015 we retained  attorney Chuck Mastin (now located in Centennial , Colorado) to handle the sale of our  dental practice, which included an assignment of our existing lease to the buyer.  Mr. Mastin informed us that his associate, Jeff Bergstrom, wo...uld  be  negotiating this lease assignment with the buyer and landlord. While we  were satisfied with the  sales  negotiation and transaction, we cannot say the same of  our lease assignment.  We feel we were not correctly informed by Mr. Bergstrom about the extent of   our continuing  financial liability ( our practice broker had the same understanding  that we did with respect to the term of  our liability),  and that our interests were not adequately protected. The real estate professionals and attorneys we subsequently consulted in 2017,  all agreed with us. Instead of our  financial liability terminating at the conclusion of our five year lease (which was concern enough for us at the time of the sale,   and  this concern was  made very clear to Mr. Bergstrom),  we were informed by the landlord when our own lease ended in 2017,  that we remained responsible in the case of  financial default  by the buyer. This liability would continue indefinitely until a brand new lease  was signed (versus the far more likely option of simply extending the existing lease), which could be many years into  the future!  We immediately contacted Jeff Bergstrom, who was  disinterested in resolving this  precarious  financial situation  we were left in by his having assured us prior to the practice sale that these liability terms of the lease assignment were "absolutely the norm.”   We  therefore had to retain another attorney and spend eight months and over $2200  in legal fees   to negotiate with the landlord the appropriate release of  financial liability  that   was not  included  in the original  lease assignment. We asked Mastin Bergstrom, LLC,  to reimburse us for these  additional legal costs, which would not have arisen had  our interests been adequately protected at the time of the practice sale, but Mr. Bergstrom declined, after ignoring our first request for reimbursement. Needless to say, we are very dissatisfied  with  the quality of  Jeff Bergstrom's professional work.