Development: Solicitor lost out financially
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been ordered to pay a solicitor exonerated by a disciplinary tribunal £50,000 in costs.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) rejected the SRA’s allegations that David Buckle had been in a conflict of interest when he worked with ‘Mrs A’ on the development of her property because it decided she was not a client at the time.
Rather, he was acting in a personal capacity as a property investor.
Mr Buckle’s costs were £200,000 but costs do not follow the event in the SDT. It awarded him £50,000 to reflect how the matter had been “poorly investigated” and the SRA’s failure to review the case at key points before it reached the tribunal.
Mr Buckle, who is 76, qualified in 1993 and is senior partner of Kent firm DMB Law. According to the SDT, in 2011 he began advising Mrs A on the development of a property she had inherited from her late husband.
In late 2013, the builder and investor withdrew from the project and soon after 2014 Mr Buckle set out his own development proposal. He advised Mrs A to take independent legal and financial advice on it, which she did before agreeing to the proposal.
Under it, Mrs A would receive a minimum of £2.2m from the proceeds. Mr Buckle would finance the development costs, up to a maximum of £1m, for which he would be reimbursed. The mortgage on the property would be discharged and Mr Buckle would be entitled to a 50% share of any profit, capped at £500,000.
The project was administered through Mr Buckle’s own companies; there was no retainer letter or other written agreements.
In April 2014, Mrs A moved into a second property, which Mr Buckle had purchased so that the development works could begin. No tenancy agreement was signed and no rent was actually paid. Mrs A lived there for the rest of her life until she died in February 2025. Her second husband continues to live there.
The development works “did not go smoothly”, the SDT recorded – what was expected to be a one-year project was still not finished six years later and costs escalated. In 2015, Mr Buckle began sending Mrs A a monthly allowance and occasional one-off sums to cover living expenses. This continued until 2020 when their relationship broke down.
In September 2021, DKB Law, on behalf of Mr Buckle in his capacity as director of the company financing the development, wrote to Mrs A seeking over £2m for build, finance and administrative costs and professional fees. Mrs A disputed the claim and reported him to the SRA.
The property was sold in January 2022 for £2.5m. Mrs A received approximately £700,000 after costs and repayment of the mortgage; Mr Buckle received nothing.
The SDT said Mr Buckle has reported the matter to Kent Police as a fraud.
The SRA accused the solicitor of acting where there a conflict of interest or significant risk of one but the tribunal rejected this.
Finding his evidence honest and corroborated by other witnesses, the SDT accepted that he was acting in his personal capacity as a financier, and not in his capacity as a solicitor, in relation to the proposal – as shown by the fact that he sent her for independent advice on it.
Mr Buckle recorded his time in relation to the project, but the SDT “accepted that was in relation to opportunity time costs and did not therefore represent time to be billed in the course of a solicitor-client relationship”.
While Mr Buckle had acted as Mrs A’s solicitor on other matters during the period, neither this nor the loans he made to Mrs A, nor purchase of the second property, gave rise to a conflict, “because Mr Buckle’s interests and Mrs A’s interests were aligned at all times in the successful outcome of the development”.
The SDT also determined that Mrs A was not, as the SRA had alleged, a vulnerable party, with the evidence indicating that she was “a formidable figure who knew her own mind and had thought through how to best utilise her asset”. She visited it frequently during the works.
Finally, Mr Buckle did not take advantage of Mrs A, the tribunal concluded. His proposal was fair – indeed, more favourable than the first development agreement – he had supported Mrs A financially and Mr Buckle was “the only one who suffered a loss in this process”.
The SDT did find that Mr Buckle failed to ensure that appropriate contractual arrangements were in place but this was not misconduct – their absence were “to Mrs A’s benefit and to Mr Buckle’s detriment”.
In deciding to award costs, the SDT said it took into account the SRA forensic investigator’s failure investigate matters “as fully as was required” and how she had been “evasive” in her oral evidence, the “poorly drafted” allegations, the failure to review the case when Mrs A died – meaning her evidence was reduced to hearsay – and after receiving Mr Buckle’s submissions, as well as its ultimate failure to substantiate the allegations.
We reported earlier this month that the SDT ordered the regulator to pay another solicitor nearly £160,000 in costs [1] after its prosecution of her was ruled “fatally flawed”.