Santander: Bank had no record of solicitor reporting issue with mortgage
A solicitor’s 50-year legal career has ended with being struck off after he misled a mortgage lender about when completion on a conveyancing transaction had taken place.
Malcolm John Colin Mackillop also lied in a professional indemnity insurance (PII) form that his firm was not facing a Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) investigation.
Mr Mackillop, who ran firm Buckingham Archdeacon Russell & Co, qualified in May 1975, at the age of 24.
He accepted he should be struck off in a statement of agreed facts and outcome with the SRA, which the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has approved.
This recorded that he was acting for a client and her mortgage provider, Santander, on the purchase of the property. In October 2021, he failed to request the mortgage funds but nonetheless completed the purchase.
Two months later, he falsely informed Santander that completion would take place imminently and requested the funds, altering the date on the certificate of title from 15 October to 15 December.
The SRA came across what he had done during an investigation into Archdeacon Russell & Co’s compliance with the accounts rules, and Mr Mackillop told the regulator that he had spoken to Santander about the issue with the mortgage monies.
He claimed that he had not made a note of the call to Santander as he was “not very good at making notes on the file”. However, Santander said it had no record of any such contact.
Mr Mackillop completed the PII proposal form in April 2023 after a deal to sell the firm fell through.
He told the SRA that he had answered ‘no’ when asked if it was subject to an SRA investigation because he was “in a rush and panic to arrange PII as quickly as possible after being left high and dry”.
In mitigation, which was not agreed by the SRA, Mr Mackillop pointed to his “hitherto unblemished career of 50 years of dedicated service to the community” and that the effect of the strike-off was to shut a law firm of 75 years.
He said his actions over the mortgage were “an attempt to rectify a bad situation that had been caused essentially by a failure in technology – a fax machine that failed to deliver a fax request for an advance”.
The PII misconduct arose from “a misunderstanding” as to the purpose of the SRA’s investigation.
The SRA said it believed his motivation was “to conceal his failure to secure the mortgage funds prior to completion and the fact that his firm was under investigation by the SRA”.
These were not isolated incidents or momentary lapses in judgment, the regulator contended. “It comprises two separate acts of dishonesty, which are serious in nature.”
The SDT agreed, concluding: “[A]s the admitted misconduct was serious and of the highest level, and considering the dishonesty, deliberate misconduct and concealment of wrongdoing, that the only appropriate and proportionate sanction was to strike Mr Mackillop off the roll of solicitors.”
He was also ordered to pay the SRA costs of £15,000.
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