Deed: Lawyers sought clients’ consent to backdate
A solicitor who instructed a trainee to backdate a deed has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after she admitted to an error of judgement.
Helen Therese Freely said she genuinely believed at the time that it was acceptable to do so, and obtained client consent.
According to an SRA notice, Mr Freely worked at City law firm Druces at the time and was working on a probate where the deceased had died in July 2022. His widow had dementia and the executors, the deceased’s adult children, also represented their mother’s interest under a lasting power of attorney.
In autumn 2024, a trainee working under Ms Freely’s supervision emailed the executors a draft deed and a retainer to be signed. Asked when to date it, Ms Freely said it should be a year after the death “because this is when it should have been done, within the executors’ year of administration”.
She told the trainee to check with the clients that they were content with this, which they confirmed.
Ms Freely admitted that she had damaged public trust. In mitigation, she said her “genuine belief was that it was proper and acceptable” to backdate the deed. In doing so, “she made an error of judgement”.
She obtained her clients’ informed and written consent, and the solicitor stressed that her intention was “not to mislead, disguise, or conceal the true chronology of events, nor to create a false impression as to when the loan arrangement was actually signed or came into effect”.
Ms Freely acknowledged that she should have dated the document as the day of execution in October 2024, “while explaining, either in a recital or covering correspondence that the agreement was intended to take effect as of July 2023 or upon the death of the deceased”.
In deciding a rebuke was appropriate, the SRA noted there was no evidence of dishonesty on the part of the solicitor, and neither she nor her clients stood to benefit from the backdating. No harm was ultimately caused and there was “a very low risk of repetition”.