Tehran: Client died in Iran
A solicitor rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for “substantial and unexplained delay” in the administration of an estate has failed in an appeal to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
The tribunal accepted that the case involved “difficult circumstances” and said “several aspects of the reasoning under challenge were capable of criticism”, but it was not satisfied that the SRA adjudicator’s ruling on Nancy Ballard was unjustified or wrong.
We reported recently [1] on the rebuke now the SRA has made it public but the SDT decision to refuse her appeal has only just been published.
In January 2016, Ms Ballard’s client, Ms D, executed her will and appointed Davis Solicitors as the executor.
Ms D passed away in February 2019. Ms Ballard retrieved the will and notified the family that she would begin administration of the estate. There was an initial delay in obtaining the death certificate because the death took place in Iran.
In January 2022, the Legal Ombudsman upheld a complaint of poor service made by the sole beneficiary of the estate.
Ms Ballard applied for grant of probate around the end of May 2024 – at the same time as the SRA issued her with a letter of warning – and it was granted three months later, but as of July 2025, more than six years after the death, distribution of the estate was still only partially complete.
The SRA found that the solicitor had failed to provide a competent service and said she acted based on her recollections as opposed to checking facts.
Counsel for Ms Ballard argued that the rebuke was “disproportionate and contrary to the proper legal principles governing disciplinary sanctions” – the SRA’s findings “amounted to competence and service failings rather than professional misconduct”.
He argued that the administration was “not straightforward”, involving a death in Iran, delays in obtaining documentation, and concerns regarding possible lifetime gifts and property transfers.
He submitted that Ms Ballard’s “caution arose from genuine concerns regarding the administration of the estate rather than indifference to her professional obligations” and a warning rather than a rebuke was the “proportionate” response.
The tribunal found “a number of matters capable of supporting” Ms Ballard’s case but “it was not persuaded that those matters rendered the adjudicator’s findings unsustainable.
“It remained open to the adjudicator to conclude that significant delay and communication failures were attributable to the appellant notwithstanding those matters and circumstances.”
The SDT went on: “The fact that differing views might reasonably be held as to whether a warning or a rebuke was the more appropriate sanction did not establish that the decision to impose a rebuke fell outside the bounds within which reasonable disagreement was possible.”
The tribunal also found that the adjudicator, who referred to a “pattern of behaviour” by the solicitor, was “entitled to treat the [2024] warning as a relevant part of the appellant’s regulatory history”.
The SDT accepted that the case involved difficult circumstances “and issues upon which differing views might reasonably be held”.
However, it was “not satisfied that the findings reached by the adjudicator were unjustified, that the evaluative assessment fell outside the bounds within which reasonable disagreement was possible, or that the decision was wrong or unjust”.
The appeal was dismissed and Ms Ballard ordered to pay costs of £5,100.