Habibullah Khan

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

Habibullah Khan, principal of HK Solicitors, faced allegations of holding client monies in office account, failing to keep records, failing to account to clients, retaining disbursement monies, failing to remedy breaches, COFA failures, making an untrue statement on a PII proposal form, and providing untrue information to the SRA. The Tribunal found dishonesty proved in respect of holding client monies in office account (1.1), the false PII form answers (1.7), and two of four particulars of providing untrue information to the SRA (1.8 - that the firm held no client funds and that the LAA had identified no issues). The Tribunal found no dishonesty/lack of integrity regarding the ATE and LDF statements. The Tribunal struck him off the Roll, finding no exceptional circumstances, and ordered costs of £7,000 (reduced from £40,000 due to his limited means).

Duties found breached:

• Diligence and timeliness
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper communication with the court
• No improper use of client money
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Proper basis for allegations
• Report serious misconduct of others
• Segregate client money
• Self-report to the regulator

Aggravating factors:

• Findings of dishonesty
• Misconduct was repeated and deliberate, continuing over a period of time
• Element of concealment in completing PII form and answers to SRA
• Knew actions were in material breach of obligations to protect public and reputation of profession
• Significant experience as sole practitioner with direct control and responsibility

Mitigating factors:

• Rectified office account with his own money
• Made some admissions to the allegations
• Ill-health at the material time
• Positive character references
• Motivation was to keep firm afloat rather than personal enrichment
• No evidence of harm to individual clients