A solicitor and senior partner has been accused by a judge of ‘lacking in credibility’ as he gave unreliable evidence in court and provided explanations that were ‘not remotely plausible’.
Judge Robert Brown also said in Fleet v Bloomsbury Law Solicitors that Jamil Ahmud had taken a ‘generally unhelpful approach’ to the litigation, missing deadlines and causing the hearing to start without his skeleton argument.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority last month closed Bloomsbury Law Solicitors on the ground of suspected dishonesty on the part of Ahmud. He is suspended following the intervention.
The closure was made while Brown was writing his decision but he stressed his views on Ahmud’s credibility were based on evidence heard during the hearing in January. The judge added: ‘It will be a matter for the SRA to consider whether any of the findings in this decision or the wider circumstances of this case require any further investigation or action by them.’
In the case, Deborah Fleet, a leaseholder and former Bloomsbury client, had applied to alter the register to have a restriction held by the firm against her title removed. She contended that she had not consented to this and the matter was referred to the first-tier tribunal (property chamber) by the Land Registry.
The firm had been required to provide a hearing bundle at least seven days before the pre-trial review hearing. Ahmud did not comply, claiming that he had not received the directions. The judge pointed out the directions had been sent to the same address used by Ahmud to send emails to the tribunal.
When the hearing started without the firm’s skeleton, Ahmud told the tribunal he had sent it to the applicant the day before. When the judge suggested this could be easily checked, Ahmud said the email had not actually gone until the morning of the hearing.
The judge said: ‘There was no acknowledgment, let alone anything remotely resembling an apology, from the [firm] for the failure to comply with the tribunal’s revised directions. This is troubling, because it suggests an inability to recognise that the approach adopted by the [firm] was actively unhelpful.’ Brown later described the firm’s statement of case as a ‘surprisingly amateurish document, bearing in mind it was prepared by a firm of solicitors’.
The firm had claimed that Fleet agreed in 2018 to grant it a charge and restriction over her property after she was behind with the payment of legal fees. She told the tribunal she had not become aware of the restriction until 2021 and that she had been ‘instructed’ by the firm to sign an incomplete document.
The judge said ‘with some dismay’ that he found Ahmud’s evidence on receiving written consent to be ‘generally unreliable [and] lacking in credibility’. There was also no evidence to show that Fleet had given oral consent to the restriction, with no note taken by the firm of the call where this was purportedly discussed.
‘It is simply inconceivable that any competent solicitor would not have made even the briefest of notes about it,’ said the judge. ‘The reason that no note exists is not because this was confirmation of an earlier agreement, but because no such discussion took place.’
Fleet’s application was approved and the tribunal ruled that Ahmud should pay her costs.
