"93. Parties in conveyancing transactions place a heavy reliance upon the solicitors they instruct to ensure that the title to property purchased or charged is perfected and that mortgage advance monies are properly secured and have appropriate priority. 94. In giving the certificate of title undertakings the Respondent gave unequivocal undertakings to Bristol & West Plc that he would take the steps necessary to perfect that lender's security. He did not do so. If solicitors could give undertakings, in particular in conveyancing transactions, without absolute certainty that such undertakings could be relied upon, the system on conveyancing in England and Wales would have to be substantially revised at great cost and inconvenience to members of the public who are buying, selling and mortgaging properties. 95. The failure on the part of a solicitor to reply fully and promptly to correspondence from his own professional body prevents that body from fulfilling its proper role as a regulator and thereby places the public at risk. 96. Further, the Law Society was prevented from acting properly as a regulator by the fact that the Respondent had made oral and written representations to the Law Society that were misleading and/or inaccurate. Indeed the Respondent had given a number of assurances and had complied with none of them. He had failed in his important duty to keep his client, Bristol & West, fully informed at all times. The same criticisms of the Respondent applied in the Bank of Cyprus matters, although his failures had not been on such a large scale in those matters. 97. The Tribunal was deeply concerned that the Respondent appeared not to be aware of his fundamental and important obligation to comply with professional undertakings. He appeared to be unaware of the unacceptable inconvenience and anxiety that failure to respond to correspondence and keep parties fully informed generates or indeed the importance of being frank and honest, not only with his clients but also with the Law Society. 98. The Tribunal has given the Respondent credit for the testimonials written in his support. It has noted his assurances that such matters will not again arise. It has also taken into account the fact that the Respondent had appeared before the Tribunal on an earlier occasion. 99. The Respondent has offered no reasons or explanation for his failures and asked the Tribunal to take into account that the conveyancing matters concerned represented only a very small proportion of his overall conveyancing workload. 100. Having taken all of these matters into account, the Tribunal concluded that the Respondent's failures, which included failures to comply with professional undertakings and making misleading and/or inaccurate explanations to the Law Society, rendered him unfit to be a solicitor. 101. In order to protect the public and the good reputation of the solicitors' profession the Tribunal concluded that it was both appropriate and proportionate to order that the Respondent be struck off the Roll of Solicitors. 102. The Respondent had indicated his agreement to be responsible for the Applicant's costs and the quantum of the same and the Tribunal therefore ordered the Respondent to pay the Applicant's costs in the agreed fixed sum of£8,000 ."
"Any solicitor who is shown to have discharged his professional duties with anything less than complete integrity, probity and trustworthiness must expect severe sanctions to be imposed upon him by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Lapses from the required high standard may, of course, take different forms and be of varying degrees. The most serious involves proven dishonesty, whether or not leading to criminal proceedings and criminal penalties. In such cases the Tribunal has almost invariably, no matter how strong the mitigation advanced for the solicitor, ordered that he be struck off the Roll of Solicitors. Only infrequently, particularly in recent years, has it been willing to order the restoration to the Roll of a solicitor against whom serious dishonesty had been established, even after a passage of years, and even where the solicitor had made every effort to re-establish himself and redeem his reputation. If a solicitor is not shown to have acted dishonestly, but is shown to have fallen below the required standards of integrity, probity and trustworthiness, his lapse is less serious but it remains very serious indeed in a member of a profession whose reputation depends upon trust. A striking off order will not necessarily follow in such a case, but it may well. The decision whether to strike off or to suspend will often involve a fine and difficult exercise of judgment, to be made by the tribunal as an informed and expert body on all the facts of the case. Only in a very unusual and venial case of this kind would the tribunal be likely to regard as appropriate any order less severe than one of suspension. It is important that there should be full understanding of the reasons why the Tribunal makes orders which might otherwise seem harsh. There is, in some of these orders, a punitive element: a penalty may be visited on a solicitor who has fallen below the standards required of his profession in order to punish him for what he has done and to deter any other solicitor tempted to behave in the same way. Those are traditional objects of punishment. But often the order is not punitive in intention. Particularly is this so where a criminal penalty has been imposed and satisfied. The solicitor has paid his debt to society. There is no need, and it would be unjust, to punish him again. In most cases the order of the Tribunal will be primarily directed to one or other or both of two other purposes. One is to be sure that the offender does not have the opportunity to repeat the offence. This purpose is achieved for a limited period by an order of suspension; plainly it is hoped that experience of suspension will make the offender meticulous in his future compliance with the required standards. The purpose is achieved for a longer period, and quite possibly indefinitely, by an order of striking off. The second purpose is the most fundamental of all: to maintain the reputation of the solicitors' profession as one in which every member, of whatever standing, may be trusted to the ends of the earth. To maintain this reputation and sustain public confidence in the integrity of the profession it is often necessary that those guilty of serious lapses are not only expelled but denied re-admission. If a member of the public sells his house, very often his largest asset, and entrusts the proceeds to his solicitor, pending re-investment in another house, he is ordinarily entitled to expect that the solicitor will be a person whose trustworthiness is not, and never has been, seriously in question. Otherwise, the whole profession, and the public as a whole, is injured. A profession's most valuable asset is its collective reputation and the confidence which that inspires."
"We must now apply a less rigorous test. We should simply look at the Tribunal's decision in the light of the whole circumstances of the case, always having due respect for the expertise of the Tribunal and giving to their decision such weight as we should think appropriate."
"Nevertheless, in following this approach we think that it is good sense to keep in view the obvious reasons that have been repeated over the years for according respect to the views of specialist Tribunals in appeals of this kind."
"Undertakings are the bedrock of our system of conveyancing. The recipient of an undertaking must be able to assume that once given it will be scrupulously performed. If property purchasers and mortgage lenders cannot have complete confidence in the safety of the money they put into the hands of a solicitor in the course of a property transaction, our system of conveyancing would soon break down. The breach of an undertaking given by a solicitor damages public confidence in the profession and in the system of undertakings upon which property transactions depend. Accordingly, if fault is shown, as it has been here, the matter must be treated seriously."
"It may entail some costs but that is the cost of self-regulation that the Law Society must pay."