Richard Brumbaugh Jr

Rich was referred to me by a friend of my late father when I needed help with probate and his estate. Communication was poor from the start. All questions I asked and all emails I sent had to be sent multiple times before getting answers a few weeks later. Phone messages were not returned. When my f...ather passed, I let him know that the goal was to sell his house ASAP since his estate could not continue to cover the mortgage. In AZ, you must have probate to sell a house if the individual has been deceased less than 6 months- a detail/law that was completely overlooked. Rich continued to push with me that the small estate affidavit would stand for selling my father's property, despite being told by the title company that it could not. It took the lawyers at the title company to point out the "6 month" law, and probate had to be filed 2 days before closing, which is a process that usually takes 2-3 weeks. I will also mention that I had to find this out from my realtor, as Rich did not inform me of this being determined. He went ahead and drafted the probate papers, something that doubles my fees to him, and was just going to tell me when I arrived to sign the small estate affidavit forms. This last-minute probate delayed the closing and cost me several hundred dollars to have to make an extra trip to AZ to take care of things when we could finally sell the house. Deal almost fell through because of the delay cause by the law being missed in the process. Then, a month after probate was obtained, he still had not completed the publication which he had told me would happen same week probate was obtained. Things became so disjointed and messy that I contacted the CEO/ President of his firm to discuss. He assisted Rich in improving his attention to communication, but only for a short time. Almost two months later I had still not heard anything back from him, so I emailed. I received an auto-response that he was no longer at the firm as of first of January. No email was sent by him informing he was leaving, no notice was given, no "further instructions" were left, and to top it all off in the two months between the probate and him leaving the firm, the publication to the paper was NEVER completed. I will admit that I have had minimal dealings with attorneys, but I am certain that the standard of communication and task completion is higher than this.