Michael Thomas Halkias

This lawyer is very unprofessional! We hired him for a home we were purchasing. Not only did he not represent us as a lawyer he defended the seller. We paid for inspection and appraisal for the home spend around $1,500. At the end the deal was canceled and he was NO HELP with the situation. He was lo...st as to what was going on with our case half of the time. He takes on too many cases he can not keep up. At the end we lost $2,500 and left with no home. He ordered the tile and a survey for the home with out our permission that ended up costing us $1,100. We spend all this money and his last statement to us was " my office will not be charging you for the work provided" what nerve! For work he did not do. This guy should not be license to represent anyone. For the RECORD James who gave him a positive review attorneys are not allowed to charge you if the buyer did not close on the house! So he DID NOT DO YOU ANY FAVORS AND YOU AREN'T SPECIAL IN ANY WAY. As the previous person LL stated he is an attorney he should not be working off of ASSUMPTIONS. Please BEWARE THIS SAD EXCUSE OF A LAWYER WILL NOT WORK FOR OR REPRESENT YOUR BEST INTEREST.

I have used Michael a few times and have referred him to my friends and family members. He is thorough and dedicated and met all of the expectations necessary for us to close. He's fair an not overpriced and concerned with the legal process and how it comforted me throughout the whole process. I... highly recommend him.

Mr. Halkias is truly a helper and a gentleman indeed. I was in a process to buy a condo in Fairview, NJ and we needed to back of a contract. Mr. Halkias helped me to cancel the deal and did not charge me a penny. He is a good listener and very kind to me and my mom during our brief visit in his o...ffice. If I am going to buy another property in NJ, I will definitely use him as my attorney. I wish the best to his business! James

In Jan 2010, I hired MIchael Halkias to represent me as a buyer on a house on a short sale (address: 704 Stuyvesant Ave, Lyndhurst, NJ ) . When I called to ask questions, my first impression of Halkias was that he is impatient and is always rushing on the phone as if I am wasting his time. . But ...he was recommended by my RE agent. I sticked with him. I received bank approvals on March and closing was set on April 9th. I started home inspection/mortgage application while Halkias started title search/survey work. A week later, I checked in only to find out he forgot to order title search! He denied he had approval from me to do the search but the fact was I discussed it on several separate occasions. He rushed to do and we had the title 2 days before closing. Closing was on 4/8, Thursday because Halkias planned on have a long weekend. On 4/8, 45 minutes before closing, I was on my way to his office. He called and told me the closing was not going to happen because the closing statement (HUD 1) was not approved by the bank. Shocked, I asked him for explanation he said he would check with seller's attorney and get back to me. End of day he called and said no updates but he had to leave for vacation on Friday and would follow up with me on Monday upon his returned. I brought the docs to another attorney for reviewed, and the HUD 1 was found with multiple errors and number typos. Later on Halkias admitted his assistant prepared the HUD 1, the single most important docs in my biggest purchase in life. On Monday, I, my boyfriend, and my RE agent met with Halkias at his office. The house was a short sales with two lien holders. On March 10, the second lien sent approval demanding to $14.5K. On March16, the first lien sent approval specifying sales price for the house and that the 2nd lien can get no more than 5K. Under such conditions specified by both banks, the house could not be sold because the two lien holders didn't agree on the payout. Instead of raising a red flag, Halkias advised me to go ahead and do home inspection, apply for mortgage, etc to prepare for closing. When I brought this up. Halkias acted as if he didn't know the existence of this info and scrambled to get the papers and read it aloud himself. Then his answers was word-by-word "I assume the seller's attorney would re-negotiate with the banks and take care it. Apparently he didn't". I couldn't believe what I heard and asked " Michael, you are a lawyer, you don't operate on "assumption". Where is the statement that the seller's attorney would re-negotiate? emails/fax? Even if you assumed correctly, have you seen any new payout plan agreed by both banks? You didn't. Why did you schedule the closing anyway? Why would a RE lawyer would schedule a closing knowing that he didn't have what he needs to close? " When asked this question, Halkias said " I can't answer this question." I asked "Michael, did you read the bank approvals? If you did, why did you submit closing documents knowing nobody provided any updated, agreed-uponed approvals?" It is at this time Halkias became outrageous and start yelling"This is over", then stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him and left us alone in the conference room. I am not sure if Michael Halkias actually read the bank approvals. If he did, WHY HE DID NOT DISCUSS WITH ME OR INFORM ME. If he did, he would actually talked to seller's attorney about renegotiation. WHY COULD HIM SHOW PROVE THE SELLER'S ATTORNEY AGREED TO TAKE CARE OF IT? I left him to have another lawyer help me with this case. The two banks ultimately did not reach an agreement on the payout. because of Michael Halkias did not do his job to review the documents. I lost my money on home inspection, mortgage application, house appraisal, title search, survey, totally more than $3000 & hundreds of hours working on the purchase. NoT only that, I missed the $8000 fed tax credit deadline. I remain stunned to this day that a person who claims to be a professional legal counsel could behave in such a way. His "This is over