A solicitor who acted on both sides of a property exchange has been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for breaching Principle 7 of the SRA Principles 2019, failing to act in the best interests of each client.
Stephen Vasey, a solicitor and partner at Walter & Plaskitt Solicitors in Stoke, was acting for two clients on the transfer of a beneficial ownership from one to the other. In its findings the SRA have said ‘there was a conflict of their interests and no substantially common purpose in relation to the matter.’ It also considered Mr Vasey had ‘failed to consider the individual needs, attributes, and circumstances of his clients.’
Hi conduct was considered not to have been ‘reckless’, but had the potential to ‘cause significant loss and had a significant impact on the client.’
On the SRA’s scale of penalties, the regulator placed the breach at band C1, the penalty for which is between 16% and 49% of an individual’s gross annual income. In this case, and taking into account his cooperation with the regulator, Mr Vasey was ordered to pay a financial penalty of £1,198 and costs of £1,350; band C1 (16% of gross annual income) and discount of 5% was applied to take account of the mitigating factor.
Commenting on its decision the SRA said
“It was decided that a financial penalty was an appropriate and proportionate sanction… A financial penalty is appropriate because:
-
Any lesser sanction would not be appropriate.
-
To send a signal to those we regulate more widely with the aim of preventing similar behaviour by others.
-
Some public sanction is required to uphold public confidence in the delivery of legal services.”
3 responses
Really!
Was not reckless……but had the potential to cause loss and upset the client?
Have the regulators become OTT and overly zealous of their persecution of qualified professionals over the course of the last few years?
Looking at several recent cases it is hard to see why anyone would wish to maintain their practising licenses as Solicitors or Licensed Conveyancers given the ability of the regulators to take such harsh and unbalanced action.
“Public sanction is required to uphold public confidence in the delivery of legal services” – only when its appropriate and proportionate Mr Regulator please.
Reading between the lines, is this a transaction where the property was transferred from person a to person b with no consideration? If the Solicitor acted for person a and person b I can see why this has come up. You would have to act for person b for the purpose of the Land Registry application but you shouldn’t be acting for person a. I’m not overly surprised by this result.
Surely with person a, you say to them to obtain separate ILA and if they don’t want to and if they don’t want to be legally represented, you send them out a letter advising of the risks and get an ID1. Worst case scenario if they cannot get an ID1, you find another way to check their ID and confirm to the Land Registry you are not acting but are satisfied with the ID.
yep