'Half-truth' in property form was not misleading, SDT hears

A solicitor who was ‘just trying to help’ a family member selling their property stepped down from his managing partner role partly because he was accused of professional misconduct, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has heard. 

Keith Charles Flavell appeared before the SDT accused of professional misconduct. Unusually, the case is a private prosecution, brought by Caroline and Andrew Fulton, buyers of the property.

Flavell, admitted in January 1983, denied all allegations against him.

The hearing centres around the sale of a property belonging to Flavell’s brother and sister-in-law. The house had a history of neighbour disputes which Fulton claims were not disclosed in full in the seller's property information form (SPIF).

Flavell, giving evidence during the second day of the tribunal, said he was not the conveyancing solicitor in the transaction. Asked why his brother was thanking him, he said it was for his ‘help generally’.

Andrew Fulton, who is representing himself, put to Flavell that the words on the SPIF were incomplete and ‘if left as they stood, they would be misleading’. He added: ‘You listened to submissions yesterday of a half-truth, it [the words inserted on the form] would have been a misleading half-truth.’

Flavell, who was a managing parter at Harrow-firm Harold Benjamin at the time, said: ‘It would have been a half-truth yes. I would not accept it was misleading. The knowledge I had at the time, that was a description of the hedge incident.’ 

When asked what would have made the form complete, Flavell answers: ‘The information that was in [his brother's] knowledge. I do not know why the form ever got used to be perfectly frank because it was never on the file. This is a paper form.’

He added: ‘I put words on a document, I did not draft a document.’

He told the court he was ‘not giving advice [but] assisting his brother’. Asked if it was normal for a partner to step in to a file post-completion, Flavell said: ‘With a client probably not but this is my brother that is why I am helping him. I’m just trying to help him out.’

Flavell said: ‘My evidence is he needed to tell [about the neighbour dispute]. I, in a telephone conversation, said to him he needed to disclose what was relevant about the disputes because it would be found out anyway.’

The tribunal heard that Flavell stepped down as managing partner at the firm partly due to the SDT case and lost in excess of £400,000 as a consequence.

Flavell is accused of professional misconduct including making suggestions which he knew to be false and misleading on the seller's property information form, refraining from making his conveyancing colleague aware of the history of complaints, disputes and associated correspondence with the neighbour and thereby allowing the purchasers to be misled. He is also alleged to have not dealt with the SRA in an open and cooperative manner.

He denies all allegations against him.

The hearing continues.