Nicholas Peter William Skinnard

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

Nicholas Skinnard, a sole practitioner and COLP/COFA, operated a long-standing loan system at his firm involving private loans and probate loans funded by inter-ledger transfers from unrelated client/estate ledgers, often without the knowledge or consent of executors or beneficiaries, without loan agreements or security, and providing banking facilities through client account contrary to Rule 14.5. He also used £83,748.39 of client money to pay his personal tax bill and repaid it using funds from an unrelated estate. He made untrue statements to beneficiaries (telling MB probate had been granted when it had not, and a charity that cheques would be sent). The Tribunal found all allegations proved, including dishonesty (applying Ivey) across allegations 1.1-1.4, 1.5.3, 1.5.4, 1.6 and 1.7, as well as lack of integrity and breaches of multiple Principles and Accounts Rules. The Respondent did not attend; the Tribunal proceeded in his absence. He was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £39,173.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Not misrepresent regulated status

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty alleged and proved
• Misconduct continued over a long period (allegations focused on three year period)
• Gross breach of trust in misusing funds from estates of deceased clients
• Very experienced solicitor with direct control and responsibility as sole practitioner
• Personal benefit derived including using client funds to pay personal tax bill
• Kept beneficiaries including charities out of their bequests and risked estate money in unsecured/improperly documented loans
• Lack of genuine insight

Mitigating factors:

• Reduced the shortages to some extent when FIO drew them to his attention
• Made early admissions save in respect of dishonesty
• No previous disciplinary matters / good regulatory record
• Repaid the personal tax loan to the estate before intervention