I hired this “firm” to do a fairly routine country residential purchase. First red flag is when Khalil informed me that the original quote I was given wasn’t going to apply because this was an agricultural/commercial property. This confused me as it was just a regular house in the country, the purchase agreement even had “country residential” as the title. This was the first clue that these guys didn’t know their way around the block so to speak. In fairness he later seemed to read the document or perhaps one of his staff pointed out that it was indeed just a residential deal and he informed me the original quote would be honoured.
Fast forward to the title search, this cost $500 and to say minimal effort was put in is being polite. The report basically just regurgitated what you get off the search, their report basically said “we are unable to determine or verify what is in the caveats” (I had 3 caveats on the title). All it would’ve taken was a quick phone call to the company, which still existed, to ask what they were and if they were relevant to the property. Luckily the sellers lawyer was more motivated than Tariq and went ahead and did all of that for me.
The next hurdle which completely baffled this “firm” was the clause from my bank that a potable certificate was required. I hadn’t gotten a test done as it was my first time buying a home and alot of the acreages don’t seem to do them and even my realtor didn’t advise to add that to the conditions, so I did some research on my own and found that title insurance comes with a potable endorsement for properties not on municipal water. I inquired with Tariq, who it was clear had no experience with this, as his responses appeared to suggest he was googling the same things i was. They submitted this request (title insurance inquiry) through the portal and apparently the bank said they would not accept title insurance.
I have no way of verifying this, but I asked repeatedly that he call the bank as I had twice confirmed with my bank that they do indeed accept it. Tariq seemed to be quite unmotivated and the only advice they offered was to defer the closing by 6-8 weeks to get a test done (it only takes a couple of days; they are clearly unaware of this as well and were referencing a heavy metals test) or find another financial institution that doesn’t require this, completely disregarding that I got a good interest rate or the amount of effort required to secure financing elsewhere.
This “firm” appears to completely disregard the benefits of having verbal communication with stakeholders and they say they cannot take action on verbal communication, completely missing the point that all verbal communications can quickly be followed up with written communications. This was a very frustrating aspect of the process, they do not appear to have experience dealing in real world scenarios or what it takes to get results when facing adversity.
It became clear with a week to go that we weren’t going to close this deal so I terminated my relationship with this “firm” and hired a little old lady in a tiny office. The final call with Tariq and Khalil consisted of Khalil arrogantly telling me that “no lawyer would be able to get this done for me” and that he’s seen this many times. They then proceeded to send me a final bill for $1200, on top of the title search so all in I paid $1800 for worthless information and unproductive advice. I hope they enjoyed the appetizers on me.
To end this sad tale, the little old lady sorted it all out in 1 business day, got me title insurance and closed the deal for a little over half the cost of KH Dunkley. That was the best decision I made throughout this process, I only wish I’d made it sooner.
Avoid this company at all costs, do not be lured in by their 4.8 out of 5 rating like I was, you’ll bring stress and misery upon yourself in an already stressful situation of buying a home. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I wonder how Mr. Dunkley feels having his name associated with such incompetent work, I will endeavour to find out.
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