SDT clears conveyancer of manifest incompetence but reprimands on client care

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has cleared a conveyancer of manifest incompetence and of taking instructions from his client’s son, while reprimanding him for failing to give the client any or adequate information or advice about the transaction, and cutting the SRA’s £40,798 costs claim by 85% to £6,000. The decision refines, from the other side, the line two tribunals drew last week.

Mark Feely, admitted in 2002 and a partner at David Barney & Co in Stevenage, acted on the transfer of a farm from his client, referred to as Client A, to the client’s son during the pandemic. The farm was Client A’s only asset and his home, and the son, who had instructed Feely on numerous other commercial transactions, introduced the matter by email in September 2020 with the words “basically my dad is gifting the farm to me”. Client A reported concerns to the SRA in June 2023.

What did the tribunal actually decide?

Three findings, pointing in different directions. The tribunal dismissed the allegation that Feely communicated with or through the son and took instructions from him, finding that the contact between them was directed to administrative or status updates on the practicalities of the conveyancing process rather than the provision or receipt of instructions. It rejected the SRA’s contention that his conduct amounted to manifest incompetence. But it found that he had failed to provide Client A with any or adequate information about the terms of his instruction and client care arrangements, or advice on the transaction, and that in doing so he failed to act in the client’s best interests and failed to uphold public trust.

The dividing evidence was a telephone call. The tribunal accepted Feely’s account, disputed by Client A, that the two spoke on 21 December 2020, two days before completion, and was satisfied that on that call he confirmed his instructions and gave at least some advice on the nature and effect of the transfer. What he never did was reduce any of it to writing: no client care information, no detailed attendance note, no separate written advice, and no confirmation of Client A’s state of health despite the son’s own solicitors asking for it in the context of capacity.

Where does the manifest incompetence line now sit?

Last week’s decisions, covered in our piece on where the manifest incompetence line sits, showed the sanction range on the wrong side of the line, from strike-off to reprimand. This judgment completes the spectrum by showing conduct that stays on the right side of it. The tribunal was explicit that the misconduct arose in a single conveyancing transaction and involved no dishonesty, no lack of integrity, no manifest incompetence and no personal gain, and it weighed Feely’s appropriate admissions, full cooperation, genuine insight and otherwise unblemished record, together with the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, in deciding that a reprimand sufficed.

The costs order is as instructive as the sanction. The tribunal accepted that the proceedings were properly brought in the public interest and that a genuine factual dispute required determination, yet reduced the SRA’s claimed £40,798 to £6,000 to reflect the limited extent of the findings made, a reduction of roughly 85% that will not go unnoticed by respondents deciding whether to contest allegations they consider overcharged.

What should conveyancers take from the decision?

The acquittals turned on what could be proved about who gave instructions, and the reprimand turned on what was never written down, which makes the practical lesson the same one running through the whole recent run of conveyancing decisions: the file is the defence. A contemporaneous note of the 21 December call, or a short written confirmation of the advice given, would probably have narrowed this case before it reached a hearing, and a client care letter to Client A at the outset would have removed the surviving allegation entirely. Where a transaction moves title between family members, verifying instructions directly with the transferor, confirming capacity where the other side raises it, and keeping the paper trail intact matter as much after completion as before it, a point our guide to post-completion registration and client care develops. The tribunal’s published judgments and the SRA Principles frame the obligations; the file is what decides whether they were met.