Krystel Marzan

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Krystel Marzan, a solicitor, faced two allegations. Allegation 1.1 concerned submitting misleading LPAs to the OPG in July 2016, purporting that the donor signed on 4 August 2015 and that she witnessed signatures, when she could not have done so because additional attorneys were only decided in January 2016. The Tribunal found this proved including dishonesty (applying Ivey). Allegation 1.2 concerned pre-signing conveyancing documents as a witness when she had not actually witnessed signatures between Oct 2019 and June 2020. This was found proved as a breach of integrity and public trust but dishonesty was NOT found, as the Tribunal accepted she had a genuine (if misguided) belief about remote witnessing. Given the dishonesty finding on Allegation 1.1 and no exceptional circumstances, the Respondent was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £19,453.20.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• Integrity
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty found in Allegation 1.1, deliberate and calculated, occurring over many weeks
• Misconduct arose from conscious, thought-out decisions rather than spontaneous acts
• Clients were vulnerable and were let down
• Respondent ought reasonably to have known conduct breached obligations to protect public and reputation of profession
• Lack of insight - told Tribunal she would continue with practices identified as deficient

Mitigating factors:

• Previously unblemished record / good character of some 9 years post-qualification
• No direct financial benefit to the Respondent
• Did not seek to blame anyone else
• No overt deception beyond the dishonesty found
• Did not take advantage of clients' vulnerabilities