KESTELL CO REALTORS

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My husband and I attempted to buy a home listed by Elizabeth Bendinelli and Kestell Co. Elizabeth was truly miserable to work with. She was consistently unavailable and extremely slow to respond to any inquires, negotiations, etc., despite the fact that a majority of the contract documents explicitly stated "time is of the essence"--she went on vacation *twice* during the first three weeks we were negotiating the sale and neglected to have anyone else cover her work while she was gone. The most disturbing part of working with Elizabeth was that, though an outstanding lien appeared on the preliminary title search, she did not disclose that fact to us or our agent, which is required per the original purchase and sale agreement title contingency addendum. It was not until our closing date was delayed that we were informed that the closing attorney was not able to get clear title on the property. We were offered early occupancy and accepted because, according to Elizabeth, the title would be clear "by the end of today or tomorrow." The closing continued to be delayed due to there being no clear title and when it came time to extend the contract yet again, Elizabeth refused to cover the rate lock extension (even though the delay was due to her error in judgement in selling a house that did not have clear title to begin with) because, in her words, she "didn't know if it would be one rate lock or five." Apparently, that was a risk she would not take but expected us to. When the contract expired, we declined to extend it and the sale was termined. Directly because of Elizabeth's unethical behavior and errors, my family lost money (the inspection fee, the appraisal fee, moving into and then out of the house). Moving is never an enjoyable experience, and we had the displeasure of doing it twice within one month. Elizabeth Bendinelli was a very poor agent for the seller of this home as well. She did not maintain the property per the purchase and sale agreement--the weeds in both the front and back yards were nearly two feet high when we moved in and the seller had broken three pickets off of the front gate while moving out (the contract explicitly stated that the gate must be repaired, but it never was). When she was confronted about the state of the lawn, she offered $30 for someone to come weed wack it--not clean it up or make it presentable (certainly not in the condition it was when she was showing the house). Her client also removed bolted-in fixtures from the house because Elizabeth had not explained to her her legal obligations; these were eventually returned, since removing them was a breach of contract. It was phenomenally bad advice to her seller to grant us early occupancy when she was fully aware of the outstanding lien. If we had been as dishonest as Elizabeth, it would have been easy for us to refuse to vacate the property and forced the seller to evict us, which is a lengthy process (the foreclosure process had been started and the three months it would have taken to evict us would have made selling the house even more difficult). Elizabeth is either very dishonest or very ignorant. She grossly underestimated how much repairs would cost (she quoted $300 total for servicing the furnace, replacing a window, repairing a leaded glass window, fixing electrical problems specified by the inspector, replacing the water heater plate and electrical panels, installing GFCI outlets, and providing numerous switchplates and electrical covers throughout the house). When we moved in, there was evidence of mouse infestation being swept away and not disclosed. After we were given an ultimatum to move out (since we had early occupancy but the contract expired due to there being no clear title), we received news that "the lien has been paid off and the house has clear title." Elizabeth was then available and eager to make a deal. We were so disgusted by the negative experience and Elizabeth's deceitful and greedy behavior, that we could only laugh and finish loading the UHaul. Clearly, our experience with Elizabeth was beyond horrible. I recommend you steer clear of Elizabeth Bendinelli and Kestell Co.