We used Shirley as the notary public for the purchase of our property.
- Shirley has more business than she could handle, which translated into delay in her communications and delay in the distribution of funds. For each correspondence, we had to send her 2 or 3 email messages before she would respond. We sometimes had to escalate the issue to our real estate agent in order for Shirley to respond.
- The payments to our strata that Shirley collected from us before closing were still not sent to the strata 2 weeks after closing, which would result in late fees from our strata. The final closing package and statement of adjustments were still not sent to us 20 days after closing, even after we inquired about them three times.
- Her office only has 2 people including herself. And we paid $1095 for her service. She readily admitted that she had 30 closings in one week. She could definitely afford to hire more staff, but didn't. In real estate and contracts, TIME is of the essence. So we were surprised that Shirley used the amount of business she had as an excuse for not meeting the basic service level expected from a notary public.
- When we inquired whether the payment for the strata that Shirley collected has been sent out 20 days after the closing, after we were notified by the strata that the strata fee was past due, Shirley became defensive and condescending in her response. She claimed that she never promised to meet any time line. (Yet in real estate transactions, we had clearly-defined Completion Date and Possession Date, and we as buyers had to send her our funds with no delay.) She started using languages like "With all due respect, I don't recall assuring you" and "that is not my practice".
- Overall based on her lack of communications, delay in sending out funds and documents, poor customer services, high fees and lack of staff, I would discourage anybody from using her services.