Midtown Law

Very surprised this attorney office got such high ratings. I just had a horrible experience with this office today. I have closed hundreds of homes in the past. This is the FIRST time an attorney insisted in prorating the property tax based on the BASE TAX instead of the ACTUAL TAX the seller paid last year. In Fort Mill, all the tax bills have a base tax bill and then a huge credit so the actual tax bill is less than half of the base tax. All other attorneys prorate based on the most recent tax bill (actual tax). But this attorney was very persistent to charge my seller based on the BASE TAX. I told him many times: the base tax doesn’t mean anything. All owners in town get a school tax credit. It is a ACTUAL TAX that the owners have to pay that counts! I even checked with my attorney whose email I showed to this attorney but he kept denying our request to change the CD. Another huge disappointment was: this closing attorney ordered the loan payoff a week before closing! Everyone knows anything can happen and the loan payoff needs to be oeder early on. Even after the attorney got a verbal confirmation from the lender about the payoff, he still insteaded to over charge my seller $20,000. This is way too excessive! We are at his mercy to send that check. The assistant who let the seller sign all paperwork was rude too! She pointed at the seller using her pen and tried to pressure my seller to sign the paperwork very hard. The buyers agent and her BIC were both awful and this law firm is apparently affiliated with the brokerage but we didnt get an affliation disclosure to sign which I need to find out why later. The buyer agent and her BIC tried all the ways to intimidate my seller and tried to force her to sign an agreement to reimburse the buyer if the buyer cannot get that ‘exact’ tax credit. We all know in SC if the buyer doesn’t apply for the primary residency then the tax will be tripled. I cannot put my seller in that situation so we kept fighting ALL DAY which was a big waste of my time! Eventually they backed off and prorated the tax based on the last year’s tax bill but still took 20,000 out of my seller’s proceeds to make sure they got enough money to pay for the loan payoff. Now the buyers cannot get the key to the house because the attorney and buyer agent’s incorporation and missed the deed recording deadline. My seller cannot get her proceeds neither until Monday. I am very curious what happend to all other closings in this attorney’s office: did they always prorate proeprty tax based on the BASE TAX instead of ACTUAL TAX?