I hired Joseph Stead & Associates to help my elderly uncle, who is in a nursing home, to set up a trust. When I had an initial conversation with their rep, Doug, who is not an attorney and has no legal background, he assured me that the attorney, Joseph Stead, would go to visit my uncle to review with him how he wanted his estate to be distributed and also go see him to explain all the final documents with him as he was executing them.
The events that transpired since that initial consultation were nothing short of complete incompetence and negligence. This includes:
- They tried to get ME to sign my uncle's engagement letter. They emailed it to me to sign instead of going to visit him and have him sign it. I never signed it.
- Nobody from the firm ever visited with my uncle during the whole process.
- They, on several occasions, asked me to fill out the questionnaire dictating how his assets were to be distributed. As someone that is a potential beneficiary, this should never have been done and is a severe conflict of interest. It is not my role to have anything to do with this decision making. I told them this and accordingly, never filled out these questionnaires.
- The only person at the firm that had any interaction with my uncle was this guy Doug, which consisted of about 15 minutes of phone conversation. Remember, Doug was not an attorney or paralegal and had no education in law. This was the extent of time that was spent with him to explain the trust and establish how it was to be distributed.
- The context of this 15 minutes of conversation was sent out in an email to the attorney, Joseph Stead, where he said "I do want to confirm that he (Uncle) did tell me twice now that (the nephew) was to make all of the decision for his assets and who gets what. I specifically asked (uncle) that if (nephew) decided to keep everything for himself or if he decided to give it all away to 100 strangers, you would be ok with that and he said yes." THIS WAS THE EXTENT OF HIS CONVERSATION. In essence, he wrote the trust to give me everything. This was not my uncle's wishes, but it sure made everything easy for this attorney. It was all fabricated!
- My uncle NEVER had any interaction with an actual attorney.
- Doug told me in an email that I had Power of Attorney (POA), which was literally impossible. How could I have POA when my uncle never signed any documents. It was a flat out lie.
- The attorney, Joseph Stead, then told me to have a notary execute the documents. Remember, in the initial consultation they said that the attorney would meet with him to talk to him about how everything worked and go through how he wanted his estate distributed, then review all the documents with him as they were being executed. Evidently, he never had any intention of ever meeting with my uncle.
- When I talked to Joseph Stead and told him that I was cancelling his services because everything was done incorrectly, he refused to refund the money paid. The only person from the firm that had any interaction with my uncle was this non-attorney, Doug, who spends 15 minutes on the phone with him. Then they have an admin insert my uncle's name in the template and that is the extent of effort they put into creating this trust.
The way these people operated was very sleazy and their incompetence was present throughout their pathetic attempt to create a trust for my uncle. STAY AWAY!!! read more
