Keith Flavell

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

Keith Flavell, Managing Partner at Harold Benjamin solicitors, was found to have breached SRA Principles 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 and failed to achieve Outcomes 10.6 and 5.1 in connection with the 2014 sale of his brother's property. He encouraged his brother to lie on the Seller's Property Information Form (SPIF) about a history of neighbour disputes, made false and misleading suggestions on the SPIF, deliberately withheld correspondence from his conveyancing colleagues, and allowed the firm to continue acting while the purchasers (the Fultons) were being misled. He also caused the firm to understate his involvement to the SRA and falsely denied his dishonesty in later civil litigation pleadings. The Tribunal found express dishonesty in relation to all three allegations. The purchasers' civil claim against the firm settled for £385,000. Applying Sharma and James, the Tribunal found no exceptional circumstances to avoid a strike-off given the planned, prolonged and concealed nature of the dishonesty. He was struck off and ordered to pay the lay applicants' costs of £29,750.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct was planned and deliberate, not spur of the moment
• Continued over a period of time (SPIF, SRA correspondence, civil litigation)
• Concealment of dishonesty and taking active steps to perpetuate it
• Vastly experienced solicitor and Managing Partner
• Misleading the regulator
• Multiple opportunities to correct course but did not
• Foreseeable and significant harm to the Fultons (reflected in £385,000 civil settlement)
• Lack of insight

Mitigating factors:

• Good character and positive character references
• Substantial charitable and community work
• Motivation was to help his brother, not financial gain
• Serious illness in his family and impact on his own mental health at the material time
• Expressed sorrow to the Fultons for their situation
• No previous disciplinary findings