Check Out Shari Nestor’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shari Nestor.

Hi Shari, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
There was never a direct path to where I am today. In other words, I didn’t even think to myself, that someday, I want to have my own firm and prepare real estate legal documents. For most of my career, I was a branch manager for a Title/Escrow Company.

I’ve always been customer service driven and therefore, I’ve done it all. During my career in the industry, as a Manager of many Escrow offices, our branches worked with Sellers, Buyers, Brokers, Developers, Attorneys, and Financial Institutions, and in the process, we prepared documents and closed transactions for commercial, residential, financial transactions as well as raw land.

One day in early 2007, I decided I’d do something different – or maybe my employer at the time decided that (LOL). I can’t say for sure. The market was volatile at the time, and I thought I would try something different… I took out a 2nd loan on my house and develop a vacant lot (a bad idea for 2007). The day I left my job, I received in the mail a letter from the IRS telling me that I owed them $68,000. I laughed it off because I knew that wasn’t possible.

I didn’t have $68,000. After trying to resolve the situation on my own to no avail, I tried contacting an attorney. The problem stemmed from a broker that was “churning” my 401K retirement account that was set up by my former employer.

After unsuccessful negotiations with the IRS, it was clear I needed to hire an Attorney. My attorney advised me to hire an “expert witness”, which I did. Upon meeting with the “expert witness” I learned that while Attorneys may understand and know the law, they often rely on experts in the field that is central to their litigation that actually works in the industry that understands the ethical and procedural functions of the profession.

Hmm… that gave me the idea that might be something I could do for attorneys in my field (title and escrow), so that day I ordered a book off Amazon on Expert Witnessing and put my resume on ExpertWitness.com website.

When I was contacted a few days later, I was ecstatic and very nervous. The contact was a law professor at ASU. He had a case that he was doing “pro-bono” with 3rd-year law students related to Escrow fraud. He wanted to meet with me and the 7 law students who were assisting in the case, together with an actual practicing attorney. I agreed to meet with them a week later, which would give me time to read my new book purchase on Expert Witnessing.

One of the first things that struck me when doing my research was that the most credible Expert Witnesses were still working in their industry, but I was essentially unemployed. In other words, being an Expert Witness wasn’t their “profession”. What I decided to do was to GIVE myself a job. I had a week to do it before meeting with the ASU law students. This is the original motivation for creating “Professional Escrow Resources”.

I created an LLC by filing Articles of Organization with the Arizona Corporation Commission appointing myself as a member and manager, did an expedited job for business cards, and created a “Retainer Agreement” (as suggested in the Expert Witness book I purchased).

I ended up being hired by ASU as the Expert Witness on the case, but more importantly, when I shared my story with one of my sons, he suggested that I actually become the “resource” for Escrow that my company name implied – Professional Escrow Resources (aka docprepper.com).

That’s how it began… he built a website, and I started marketing my services to the title and escrow industry from my laptop in my bedroom to be a resource for mobile signings, temporary staffing, and auditing. One day, I received a request for document preparation – and that ended up being the niche that most needed to be filled.

That’s how it all began, and we’ve grown from the laptop in my bedroom, to have a beautiful office in downtown Phoenix. We have been at our current location for the past 8 years, We are certified by the Arizona Supreme Court as Legal Document Preparers (“LDP”) and currently have a staff of 5 to assist individuals, investors, lenders, surveyors, entrepreneurs, etc., with document preparation services.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There were many twists and turns, of course. In the beginning, I was still being retained by Attorneys as an Expert Witness, and some of the cases were long and involved.

Starting out, I was unsure of what resources that Professional Escrow RESOURCES offered would click. Would it be the Moble Signing (lots of competition there), offering auditing services to Escrow and Title… or perhaps being an “expert witness” on behalf of the title company.

I really thought the key would be to offer temporary employees to title companies might be a good resource to escrow. The market was not all that great in 2008-2009, so Title/Escrow Companies didn’t want to commit to hiring people full time. I figured I knew enough out-of-work talent after many years in the business to offer temp services to title companies whenever they had a temporary surge of business. I recruited several different Escrow and Title professionals that were looking for work.

I soon discovered that providing “temp services” is a brutal business. There’s nothing worse than feeling totally responsible for circumstances that you have no control over whatsoever. I would get calls from the people I had “available” telling me they really wanted to work – however more often than I thought when I found a job for them – all of sudden they were busy or wanted to go in late and leave early. It was a lose, loss situation. Since it was sporadic, it was a big headache and not very profitable.

When I realized the best option was to focus on document preparation – there was the matter of the “unauthorized practice of law”. Then I discovered that the Court will certify you providing you meet certain standards, pass an exam and background check and pay them, of course! Getting that done was challenging when you’re operating on a shoestring.

There’s an ongoing challenge of hiring the right people to work with you. Since there are not that many businesses that provide this service, there isn’t a pool of people with experience to pull from – so we’ve really had to train everyone that works here. We’ve got a great staff now, but along the way, there have been some doozies that we’ve had come and go.

And by “we” I refer to my son, Nicholas. He offered to help with marketing back when I was still working out of a bedroom at my house on that little laptop. He would call on Title and Escrow people on his days off from the job he was working, and then finally it made sense to bring him on full time. Wow. He has been a great asset to this company in more ways than I can recount.

Initially, his older brother helped set up the website and put many of the procedures in place that we still use today. However, when he left the Company at the end of 2015, Nicholas has done most of the heavy lifting from tech support to marketing, supervising, etc.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We specialize in creating custom real estate documents, along with electronically recording the documents in their proper jurisdiction.

We prepare Deeds of all kinds in the event you want to add someone (spouse, family member, etc.) to the title of your home, remove someone from the title, and transfer property to your Trust or LLC. If you’d like us to create an LLC for you, we can do that and include Articles of Organization, Operating Agreement, Transfer of Membership Interests, Amend existing LLC, prepare Beneficiary Deeds, Promissory Note (with appropriate Security Instruments such as Deed of Trust, Agreement for Sale, Mortgage), Subordination Agreements.

We can help prepare documents for parcel splits or merging parcels. Need access to your property with a roadway? We will prepare easements, road maintenance agreements as well as shared well agreements, etc, Any document that you need in connection with real estate.

What sets us apart? To begin with, we are accessible. In other words, we actually answer our phones – a human connection. We explain the process to our customers so they know what to expect and when. We cannot give legal advice, however, we can provide information. In other words – we don’t hide behind VM or make the customer fill out forms to get service.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Phoenix is truly a rose in the desert. There is access to almost anything you want to do.

There are concerts and museums, love The Suns, and Diamondback Baseball. If you miss the snow, I have no idea why you would, but if you do, there’s a short drive to the mountains in the winter to satisfy your desire for the cold stuff. There are lakes for water skiing, there are beautiful mountains for climbing.

The weather is great for all but a few short months – but the heat doesn’t bother me. I cannot think of anything I don’t love about the Valley of the sun!

Contact Info:

• Email: docs@docprepper.com
• Website: https://docprepper.com/