SDT: Conduct was dishonest and untrustworthy
A veteran solicitor who “preferred the interests” of one client in property transactions over the interests of his co-owners has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) said Angela Stanton, 73, acted dishonestly in providing misleading information to one of the other owners.
It found her misconduct to be “deliberate and repeated”.
Ms Stanton, who qualified in 1980, was a conveyancing solicitor at Beverley Morris in South-East London, as well as its COFA and money laundering compliance officer.
‘Client B’ was a property developer, for whom Ms Stanton had acted several times. He was in a relationship with co-owner Client A at the time of the first transaction and with co-owner Client E at the time of the second.
Ms Stanton was instructed in 2020 over a £320,000 loan which Client B wanted to secure on a property he owned with Client A. The balance payable from the loan turned out to be £197,000, once £120,000 had been paid to a third party.
The solicitor dealt with Client B throughout and four years later Client A complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority that the charge was obtained without her “knowledge, consent or signature” and she had never received any letters, emails or phone calls from Beverley Morris.
Ms Stanton admitted acting with a lack of integrity by failing to act in Client A’s best interests, provide a competent service, undertake adequate customer due diligence, obtain Client A’s authority or consent and protect the funds due to her.
In 2021, Client B and Client E instructed Ms Stanton to act on the sale of a £1.3m property, ‘Property F’, that they jointly owned.
Client E understood that, once a loan was paid off, the pair would split the remaining balance of £970,000 and she would use her share, £507,000, to buy a home in her sole name.
In September 2021, she instructed Beverley Morris to act on the purchase of a property for £495,000 and Ms Stanton told her that she would keep the proceeds of the sale of Property F in her client account and apply them to the purchase and stamp duty.
However, Ms Stanton did not tell Client E that, once liabilities had been met, the sale of Property F would actually only generate £40,000, of which she would receive £20,000.
The purchase collapsed but Ms Stanton continued to reassure Client E, who had found another property to buy, that she still had the money.
It was only in January 2023 that it emerged she did not and Client E discovered that the rest of the proceeds of Property F had gone to pay a debt Client B owed and as a redemption payment to a finance company. Client B died in April 2023.
Ms Stanton admitted that she failed to act in Client E’s best interests, preferred Client B’s interests, and acted dishonestly by providing misleading and inaccurate information to Client E.
She acted despite a conflict of interest, withheld material information from Client E and gave an undertaking and transferred sale proceeds for Client B’s benefit without Client E’s consent.
Failing to account accurately to Client E, Ms Stanton “altered or supplied misleading financial statements and information about Client E’s remaining funds”.
In non-agreed mitigation, Ms Stanton apologised and said the affected parties “have now been compensated for the losses they suffered”.
The SDT noted that she did not obtain any personal advantage from her conduct, had been quick to accept her own wrongdoing, had co-operated fully with the regulator and had no previous disciplinary findings against her.
However, her conduct was dishonest and untrustworthy, and striking her off was the correct sanction.
Ms Stanton was also ordered to pay £18,000 in costs.