Martin William Harrison

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

The Respondent acted for Ms H on a property sale and arranged for the deposit (£7,650) and completion monies (£68,850) to be paid into his own private bank account, using the funds for his own purposes; he later raised a £78,000 secured loan to repay her plus £1,500 compensation/interest. He also transferred £9,000 of Mr G's settlement monies from client account to his own account for private expenses, later repaid. He failed to respond to the SRA. The Tribunal found all allegations proved, including dishonesty regarding Ms H (applying the Twinsectra test), and struck him off, ordering costs of £12,500.

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Aggravating factors:

• Utilised client money for his own purposes
• Abused the trust placed in him by clients
• Deprived clients of use of money properly belonging to them
• Brought the profession into disrepute
• Failed to cooperate with or respond to the SRA

Mitigating factors:

• Repaid the monies to the clients involved
• Paid additional £1,500 compensation and interest to Ms H