A solicitor who breached an undertaking on a property sale and then tried to stop it being reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority has been struck off by the tribunal.
Charles Stevens, who practised with Essex firm Bawtrees LLP, was handling the sale of a £6.5m property and gave an implicit undertaking to immediately send a £650,000 deposit to the seller’s solicitor by a certain date.
He texted the seller before the deadline saying the money was ‘in the system’ and gave the wrong impression it was about to be transferred. Stevens later told the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal he thought the client was in the process of transferring it.
The SRA said Stevens should never have given the undertaking if he knew he had not received the funds. The breach exposed his client to the risk of litigation to recover the £650,000.
In the course of subsequent settlement discussions, Stevens tried to prevent the seller and their solicitors from taking the matter to the SRA. He emailed them saying his client would agree to a settlement on the basis that ‘this matter is then dropped and neither your firm or your clients proceed with any action against me or Bawtrees including reporting either to the Law Society or the SRA. If you can confirm this then I think we are agreed.’
The conduct was in any case reported by the seller’s solicitors.
Stevens, admitted in 2007, denied acting recklessly over the breach of the undertaking and denied attempting to stop a complaint to the SRA, claiming he was merely conveying his client’s settlement terms.
The tribunal found all allegations against him proved. ‘The misconduct had not been an isolated incident and brief error of judgment but had involved serious lack of integrity at a very high level on two separate occasions (separated by a little over a month) demonstrating a pattern of behaviour and a troubling mind set on the respondent’s part,’ added the tribunal.
‘[He] had failed to self-report the misconduct and instead had taken active steps to prevent the conduct being reported to the SRA, effectively hiding behind his client and attempting to persuade a fellow solicitor not to fulfil their own regulatory reporting responsibilities.’
Stevens was struck off and no order was made for costs based on his limited means.
