Ranjit Kaur

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

Ranjit Kaur, admitted 2003 and sole principal of Abbisons & Co and Essex Solicitors, faced 15 allegations proved to the criminal standard including breaches of the Solicitors Accounts Rules, failure to honour undertakings, practising without a certificate and in breach of conditions, failure to redeem a client's mortgage despite receiving funds, and unauthorised payments from client account. The Tribunal found she used client money (including Mr SA's mortgage funds of £132,265) for unauthorised purposes and expressly found dishonesty applying the Twinsectra combined test, citing proximity of payments, blank cheque stubs, round-sum transfers and unauthorised client-to-office transfers. She did not attend. The Tribunal struck her off the Roll and ordered costs of £45,600.23 (reduced from £46,700.23 for the short hearing), and directed the IPS decision be enforceable as a High Court order.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• Advise on alternatives, settlement and outcome
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• Diligence and timeliness
• Hold a current practising certificate
• Honour professional undertakings

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonest use of client money for own and others' purposes
• Wide range of disciplinary breaches over a period of time
• Serious allegations at the top end of the scale
• Minimum cash shortage of £115,423.27 in respect of client Mr SA
• Persistent failure to respond to regulator correspondence