I just wanted to reply to many of the negative comments. My experience with Valerie Arvin and her team has been nothing short than professional and outstanding. We used her to buy our office condo 10 years ago and most recently in the sale of multiple properties in Sea Bright that were part of an estate that we were executors for. Both transactions went flawlessly. She has also provided me with legal advice on other matters as well and was able to get a significant tax reduction on my personal property. IMHO , she is an excellent attorney and has a very responsive staff. Mike Dazio read more

DON'T MAKE THE HALF MILLION DOLLAR MISTAKE I'VE MADE WITH THIS AWFUL LAWYER. Valerie is the most incompetent lawyer I have ever came across. She costed me $10,0000 more over asking price on my property. See attached image. This lady is reckless and she has regard to the basic values. From the start I had a feeling that she was not the best person to work with but she was referred by our realtor unfortunately I had to pay the price. When she does her attorney review, it's like she's doing 20 things at once, you hear her cooking, dishes and noise and she always rushed you through and sure enough after our realtor carefully reviewed comps with us and made an offer for 580k waiving appraisal to 570k she just worded everything backwards and almost killed our deal. And we just had to bring the extra money at closing. Believe me you could do better, don't deal with lady as her work ethic is below average. read more

Valerie Avrin is an excellent real estate lawyer. She is very knowledgeable, trustworthy, and provides the best advice! The office staff is helpful and professional. I trust Valerie and her team with all my real estate needs, and I know many others who do as well. read more

Ms. Arvin was good enough to return my call after I was referred to her. She seemed knowledgeable and competent and agreed to handle an inter family home purchase for my family. And that was the last I heard from her or her office. After calling her office several times over the next 3 1/2 months to check the status of the simple closing and never receiving a return call, I was forced to terminate her engagement. Like others reported, calls to the office we're answered promptly and by a friendly person who gave the same run around ... 'I'll check with the paralegal working on your file', 'that paralegal is working remotely, she'll get back to you', 'Valerie is working on your file and she's in a closing'. I get it, attorneys farm work out to their staff, but there is an expectation that someone is overseeing the assignments. That seems not to be the case with this office. No wonder others, who had actual stakes in connection with their transactions, are so frustrated with the haphazard approach to doing business. Very disappointing. read more

I am new in the area and found myself in a tough spot very fast. Valerie had been recommend by a colleague of my wife. And I reached out with very little time on my side to resolve a legal matter and her help was incredible. She was calm and collected all the important information and gave me her best opinion on the matter. I was very impressed on all her assistance and it was a game changer. My family is very grateful and my wife, who is a real estate agent and myself will def recommend her. I look forward to working with her in the future. read more

I have used Valerie Avrin for multiple purchase and sale transactions over the past 20 years and am extremely happy with her service as well as her paralegals. I am always treated with respect and professionalism. Valerie's knowledge and responsiveness are far greater than attorney's I have used in the past, this is why I will continue to come back to this office! Great job ladies! read more

I am a full time TOP Producing Agent, and I use Valerie A for my own personal attorney. I have the privilege of meeting many attorneys in my line of business. If you are looking for strong attorney, you knows what she is doing. Valerie is your attorney. 98% of her business is real estate, she is an expert in her field. I highly recommend Valerie. I want her on my side. Julianne Siciliano Weichert Realtors read more

Valerie Avrin Esquire, Valerie has represented our Real Estate Office and us personally. Extremely professional, reliable, and courteous. Thank you for always being there for us! read more

BEST Attorney EVER!! Very diligent and supportive! We closed on our New Home with her and she helped every step of the way. We since continued to use her for our Wills. She is always available anytime for questions and concerns. Response quickly, No waiting for days!! RECOMMENDED HIGHLY!!! read more

The Summary: My wife and I utilized the services of Valerie Avrin as our attorney for the sale of our home in 2015. We were less than enthused with our experience with Valerie, so let's get right into it. The Service: Rating: 1 out of 5 First, when we used Valerie as our closing attorney, we did NOT work directly with Valerie. We were assigned to a paralegal who took care of our closing. I would not have thought this was bad, except for the fact that our paralegal lacked the general experience and knowledge to handle our closing properly. We experienced more errors and oversights from this office that we could have ever imagined. The Knowledge: Rating: 1 out of 5 The lack of knowledge by Valerie and her staff regarding our specific closing is really where most of our problems occurred. Our paralegal didn't know much, and what she did know was either wrong or not explained to us properly. Speaking with Valerie wasn't much better. Valerie spoke in general legal terms and almost never regarding our specific closing. She gave us incorrect information more than once, and caused numerous problems during the closing. The worst offense occurred four weeks after the closing, when I received an "intent to foreclose" from my lender. When I called the lender to explain that I had closed on the property a month earlier and was no longer the owner, they informed me that they never received the payoff check. Valerie attempted to blame the buyer's attorney, blame my wife and I for not sending the proper payoff statement, and blame everyone else in the world as long as they weren't employed in her office (not really but for exaggeration purposes it makes my point. She would not accept even an inch of responsibility as she blamed us for her oversight). This resulted in an accrual of $520 in additional interest in which Valerie attempted to make us pay. After we refused, she offered to "split the difference." After another refusal and 30 minutes of arguing, she agreed to pay for her mistake. Wow. Just wow. The Responsiveness: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 The one area in which I have to give some credit is the responsiveness of the office. Our paralegal responded to emails very quickly, usually within a few hours. The only thing that could have made our experience worse would have been if we had to wait days for responses/replies from the office. But, luckily that didn't happen. I actually would have rated their responsiveness higher if Valerie wasn't so difficult to get a hold of. There were many times that our paralegal just didn't know the answer to a question, or worse yet, gave us incorrect or conflicting information. It was at these times in which we asked to speak with Valerie. Unfortunately, Valerie was always "on a conference call" or "in a closing." We would wait a day or two before having to follow-up again. It was only after our follow-up would we receive a call back from Valerie. The Professionalism: Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Professionalism was essentially non-existent with this office. The emails we received were short and most times very difficult to interpret. We rarely received an explanation for anything that was requested or happening, and often major things were just overlooked. For example, our paralegal forwarded us the settlement sheet, which was prepared by the buyer's attorney, which shows all the financials for the sale. We found numerous mistakes that would have resulted in us losing thousands of dollars. When I asked our paralegal about the errors, she replied, "I didn't look at it, I just forwarded it directly to you." I'm sorry, but isn't my lawyer (or paralegal who is employed to do all my lawyer's work for them) supposed to ensure accuracy in the documents they send to me (that is rhetorical, obviously)? Finally, the lack of professionalism came to the forefront when Valerie attempted to make me pay for her mistake when forgetting to send the payoff to the bank and actually pay off our loan. The lack of professionalism continued as she argued with me and only offered to "split the difference." By the time she finally offered to pay for her mistake, it was too late for professional redemption. I don't think they know what professionalism is in this office. The Cost/Value: Rating: 2 out of 5 The fee for Valerie's services on our closing was $850 plus any other associated fees such as mailing or overnight fees. We did end up paying a $40 overnight fee, so our total cost for Valerie's services was $890. This would have been reasonable and expected had she done an adequate job. This may have even been a decent value had the closing went smoothly and she didn't make a cluster fudge out of everything. But, that's not what happened. So, while the cost was very average for a house closing in New Jersey, the value we received was extremely low. read more

We used Valerie on our last closing. Since we are an investor and have closed on many properties we can actually compare the service to other lawyers and by far Valerie is the WORST out of all the lawyers we worked with. Service- terrible. Negotiations with the buying party- she seemed to work in the other party favor although she was my lawyer and I was paying her. Responsiveness to your emails-you can wait days. You have to follow up with a phone call right after sending the email. Responsiveness after the closing- zero. I requested a PDF copy of the HUD several times and got no response at all. So, if you have any questions after the closing... don't even count on her responding. She cashed the check and will not spend a minute on you anymore. Please do yourself a favor and stay away from Valerie's office read more

Valerie Arvin is an amazing lawyer and person. She has represented us in several transactions and is very professional and on top of everything. She is a tough lawyer when you need her to be. She is always available and is quick to call back when i needed to speak with her if i didn't reach her. Her staff is also helpful, smart and pleasant. read more

We have used Valerie Avrin a number of times in the last five years. Valerie handled our wills as well as several real estate tax appeals. With regard to the wills, Valerie gave us valuable advice that accomplished everything we needed to protect our estate. She represented us in tax appeals and never failed to produce results in our favor. Her fees were always fair for services rendered. She was interested in our welfare and not simply looking for ways to "keep the clock ticking". We absolutely felt that Valerie had our best interests in mind. She is approachable and responsive. She is honorable and ethical. read more

The Good: Ms. Avrin passed the bar, seems competent, and is fairly pleasant to talk to when you actually talk to her. When you call the office during business hours, someone will always pick up the phone on the first or second ring. The Bad: You will almost never be talking to Ms. Avrin. Instead, your file will be passed over to one of her paralegals. I can only speak of my experience, which was with Georgia Korellis. Other members of her staff might be much better. But with Ms. Korellis, it was not good. She interrupts, does not listen, does not read anything, and, in my admittedly limited experience, was generally a rude, condescending person. With her you'll get tons of attitude and zero compassion. Emails went unanswered, phone calls unreturned at various points in my dealings with this firm. It was near-impossible to reach Ms. Avrin. The office seems to protect her from having to talk to her clients. If they do not want to talk to you, you will be told that the person you need to speak with is "on the phone," or "at a closing." I had trouble believing that this firm was overseeing so many closings in a depressed real estate market. What you will be paying for is essentially a legal paper pusher. The required legal documentation is all they do. They will not read your inspection report, your appraisal, or mortgage commitment. Georgia was incredulous when we asked questions that would have required her to have read these documents. She is too busy for that and can't be bothered. Ms. Avrin is more professional and reasonable, but again, you won't be talking to her. Any questions you have or advice you need must be specifically asked for and asked for repeatedly. Be prepared for simple things to take a long time to happen. The forms and communication they prepared for us looked like form letter copy and paste jobs. Mistakes were made and our requests misunderstood. All of this and it was still VERY slow. You will need to follow up repeatedly to ensure that things do happen. This was this case with our relatively simple, straightforward home purchase. I can't imagine what it would've been like if there had been complications. This is a real estate law sweat shop. There are too many other options. Avoid this one. read more

2016 sale of house - Poor representation. Lack of follow-up. Papers incorrect at closing. Not recommended.