Legal News – A conveyancing solicitor who acted for lenders in conveyancing transactions without telling them he was also acting for himself and family members in the same transactions, has been fined £12,500.
Conveyancing solicitor Mark Robert Westwood was fined £12,500 over a conflict of interest and failure to disclose his relationship to the borrower client in conveyancing transactions and he was also ordered to pay costs of £19,670.
Westwood was reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority by legal counsel for Clydesdale Bank, who had said that a certificate of title, relating to a property it was lending on, had been signed by one of the borrowers which was Westwood. The bank complained this was a breach of instructions, a breach of all normal rules of conveyancing, and a significant conflict of interest.
Between September 2016 and October 2020, while working as a solicitor at Cavendish Legal Group/O’Neill Patient Solicitors, it was reported that conveyancing solicitor Mark Robert Westwood acted in five conveyancing transactions where there was a significant conflict of interest between his lender client and himself.
During the same September 2016 and October 2020 period of time, he also failed to disclose to his lender client, material information concerning his relationship to his borrower client, who was also a relative.
Westwood, a consultant at the Cavendish Legal Group/O’Neill Patient Solicitors conveyancing firm, admitted the allegations against him but denied a breach of Principle 2 of the 2011 Principles, and Principle 5 of the 2019 Principles. He further denied recklessness in relation to the conflict of interest allegation.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority brought the allegations against Westwood to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
During the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal Westwood said he had not intended to have any involvement in the transaction, which would be carried out by a member of the team in another office.
However, Westwood said, that the firm was ‘working under exceptional circumstances… due to the Covid-19 pandemic’ and that he had signed the title “without thinking and in the heat of the moment” with “no intention of being duplicitous.”
The SDT said: “The tribunal reviewed all the material before it and was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the respondent’s admissions were properly made. The tribunal considered that the respondent had erred significantly in acting in conveyancing transactions where there were conflicts of interest, with the consequential risk of harm to clients and lenders being an evident danger.”
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal judgment noted that, in mitigation it was acknowledged he had admitted fault, cooperated with the investigation, had shown genuine remorse and that there had been no dishonesty.
The SDT said that the £12,500 fine was ‘proportionate and in the public interest’.
