Margaret Bridget Hetherington & Patrick Clement Hetherington

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

Two sibling solicitors, partners and directors of the Hetherington Partnership Limited, acted for purchaser clients in over 6,792 transactions involving the purchase of car parking spaces and storage pods from 'Group First' entities between 2011 and 2017, with over £101 million passing through the Firm's client account. The Tribunal found they deliberately provided inadequate advice on contractual documents (the COS reservation agreement requiring 100% non-refundable payment, headlease, sublease, option agreement and Minute of Agreement), failed to advise on material clauses, allowed client monies to be released to the sellers' solicitors JWK before any advice or security, and ignored repeated Action Fraud and SRA warning notices. The Tribunal found their failings were deliberate and motivated by preserving the Firm's main income stream, preferring their own interests over clients' interests (own-interest conflict). The Second Respondent additionally breached his COLP/COFA compliance duties. The Tribunal made an express finding of dishonesty under the Ivey test. Both were struck off and ordered to pay costs of £98,000 jointly and severally (reduced from £113,797.24 claimed). The High Court dismissed their subsequent appeal.

Duties found breached:

• Cooperate openly with regulators
• Honesty
• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Proven dishonesty
• Conduct deliberate, calculated and repeated over a number of years and over 6,000 transactions
• Significant financial harm to vulnerable clients who lost substantial sums
• Harm to reputation of the profession
• Evasive evidence and deliberate failure to answer questions in cross-examination
• False denial that Client KB was a client of the Firm and failure to rectify
• Ignored multiple Action Fraud and SRA Warning Notices directly relevant to the transactions

Mitigating factors:

• Previously unblemished careers / no previous disciplinary matters