P Douglass, & K Colton & Another

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

JW Mitchell Dodds & Co / Adamsons handled 88 remortgage and 26 back-to-back 'buy to let' transactions for North East Property Buyers and connected parties bearing hallmarks of a large mortgage fraud, involving conflicts of interest, acting for buyer/seller/lender simultaneously, and failure to disclose material facts (inflated valuations, sub-sales, bridging finance) to lender SPML. All allegations were admitted except dishonesty against partner Philip Douglass. The Tribunal found Douglass's conduct dishonest by objective standards but was not satisfied to the criminal standard on the subjective limb of Twinsectra, so the dishonesty allegation was NOT proved. Douglass was suspended indefinitely (85% costs); employee solicitor [Respondent 2] was fined £10,000 (10% costs); legal executive clerk Keith Colton received a Section 43 order (5% costs). Costs of ~£44,000 ordered subject to detailed assessment, apportioned 85/10/5.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• No taking unfair advantage
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Substantial mortgage fraud - one of the largest ever encountered by police, involving 88 remortgage transactions and 26 back-to-back transactions
• Complete disregard of lender SPML's written instructions
• Failure to recognise obvious conflicts of interest
• Douglass acted for his own wife (then partner) as vendor while firm acted for all parties
• Douglass an experienced conveyancer who would have known the warning signs from earlier mortgage crisis
• Douglass had a previous appearance before the Tribunal (1989)

Mitigating factors:

• Dishonesty not proven against Douglass (benefit of doubt on subjective limb of Twinsectra test)
• Numerous character references attesting to honesty and trustworthiness
• Overheated housing market and lax lending policies at the time
• [Respondent 2] and Colton acted under supervision and detailed instructions of experienced principal Douglass and sought assurances from lender
• [Respondent 2] and Colton inexperienced in this form of conveyancing
• Apologies and acknowledgement of failings; Douglass no longer practising

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]