Nathaniel Bertrand Felton (J)

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

The Respondent, sole principal of Nathaniel Felton Solicitors, faced five allegations relating to failure to cooperate with the SRA, failure to comply with an Adjudicator's decision, and failure to register a client's legal title to a property after completion (over 16 months later). The Tribunal proceeded in his absence, finding all five allegations proved beyond reasonable doubt. No dishonesty was alleged or found. Given this was his third appearance and his complete disregard for the regulatory regime, the Tribunal imposed an indefinite suspension and ordered costs of £5,500 (reduced from the claimed £6,924).

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Proper termination and return of instructions
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Third appearance before the Tribunal
• Previous admission on 17 December 2009 of failure to deal with SRA openly and failure to pay Counsel's fees
• Repetitive pattern of behaviour and complete disregard for the regulatory regime
• Failure to engage with proceedings
• Caused at least one member of the public to suffer as a result of his conduct

Mitigating factors:

• Respondent had medical difficulties (though medical evidence was not up to date)
• Individually the allegations were not the most serious; the Adjudicator failure seen as something of a technical failure
• Respondent was in the process of closing his practice and intended to retire