Mark Robert Breunig

My brother-in-law died in California last year. We are in Missouri. We hired Mark to guide us through the probate process in CA because we know nothing of how that process works. In our case, my wife's brother had a child, but their whereabouts were unknown. My wife took it on herself to handle th...e funeral arrangements and pay the utility and other bills until the legal aspects were resolved and an administrator was appointed. Once that happened, Mark said we could be reimbursed by the estate. We paid Mark $2600 for starting the paperwork. He told us that he would also be paid from the estate the same amount as the administrator of the estate based on a formula in CA law. That all sounded fine to us. Then the child was found and their attorney filed a counter claim as they were the legal heir. That also made sense and meant that we would no longer be involved in deciding on an administrator. Mark sent us a form DE-172 to list our claims for the items mentioned above and said he would file it for us when an administrator was appointed. We filled out the form to the best of our ability and sent it, along with all the supporting documents, to Mark. We haven't heard a word since. We've written and called multiple times to see if the form was filed. We asked if we needed to contact someone else at this stage. No calls were ever returned. No e-mails were ever answered. We have no idea as to where the process now stands. We're sure it's too late by now to recover the money we spent, but we can't believe that Mark just completely ignores us and won't even tell us if the form was submitted. We paid them to help us through this. We guess they may not have a claim on the money from the estate now so they just want us to go away. Very unprofessional, insulting and unethical in our opinion. We hired him to guide us through this process. We figured they would at least tell us what happened now that the legal heir was found. Was the claim form ever actually submitted? Were our claims accepted or denied? Is it too much to even tell us that they are off this case and to talk with someone else? So just beware if there is a chance that they may not be paid be a third party -- because if that happens you will likely never hear from them again. Quite sad that ignoring clients when convenient seems to be part of their business model. We're extremely disappointed in their behavior.

This was the first experience I've had completing a living trust so I really need guidance. Mark was very easy to work with and able to answer all questions posed in a timely manner. The process went smoothly and I now sleep a bit better knowing my estate is taken care of and I have a legal advisor I... can continue to rely upon.