A long-serving solicitor has been reprimanded by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for failing to provide a client with adequate information when acting in a property transfer during the pandemic.
Mark Feely, admitted in 2002, a partner at Stevenage firm David Barney & Co, was found to have failed to provide his client with any or adequate information regarding the terms of his instruction and client care arrangements.
A second allegation, that Feely communicated with or through the transferee, the client’s son, and took instructions on aspects of the transaction from the son, was dismissed.
In its written judgment, the SDT found the terms of Feely’s ‘instruction, client care arrangements and advice on the transaction provided by the respondent to Client A were clearly insufficient’. The tribunal was satisfied that Feely had 'confirmed his instructions and provided at least some advice as to the nature and effect of the transfer, but without providing separate detailed written advice’.
The judgment added: ‘In the absence of a more detailed note of the [telephone] conversation [between Feely and his client] and any subsequent written advice, the tribunal found, on the balance of probabilities, that the respondent failed to provide Client A with adequate information regarding the terms of his instruction and client care arrangements, or adequate advice in relation to the transaction’.
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The misconduct ‘arose in the contact of a single conveyancing transaction’ and, the SDT said, ‘the failings were isolated to a single matter’ which happened ‘during the exceptional circumstances’ of the pandemic and had not been repeated.
Feely, who had no previous disciplinary findings against him, made appropriate admissions and cooperated fully with the investigation and subsequent proceedings, the judgment said. He ‘demonstrated genuine insight into his failings and had an otherwise unblemished career.’
Feely was reprimanded, which the three-person panel found to be a ‘fair and proportionate sanction’. Refusing the SRA's application for £40,798 in costs it ordered that Feely pay £6,000.
