Solicitor struck off over falsified decree absolute
19 February 2021
Divorce: The decree absolute that wasn’t
A solicitor who led a client to believe he was divorced after she falsified a decree absolute has been struck off.
Ebru Atas also admitted having the client pay her in cash, which she kept rather than give to her employer, as well as getting a legally aided client to pay fees he was not liable for into her personal bank account.
Ms Atas was a paralegal and then, after qualifying in 2017, a solicitor at North London firm Kilic & Kilic.
According to an agreed outcome between Ms Atas and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), she was sacked for gross misconduct in September 2019 when it came to light that she had demanded that a client in receipt of legal aid pay fees of £1,635 into her bank account – he thought he was paying the firm.
By John Hyde2021-02-19T09:43:00+00:00
A solicitor and pillar of his local community has been struck off after misleading a client for months about an impending payment.
Gregory Stuart Saunders, formerly a partner with national firm Clarke Willmott, misled the client through emails saying that £38,000 settlement monies from a litigation would be paid imminently. In fact, Saunders had sent the client a draft settlement agreement but had not made initial contact with the other party and had not progressed the matter.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that, in December 2018, Saunders promised the client the money would be ‘like a Christmas present’, but the issue dragged on through to February 2019, when the client complained that nothing had been received.
There are serious concerns over the behaviour of a regulator and a disciplinary tribunal after a High Court ruling last month involving the president of the Law Society.As the case concerned claims
Roger Allanson THE former boss of a Bolton solicitors firm - embroiled in a controversial mortgages scheme - has been struck off. Roger Allanson’s firm, formerly based in Central Street, specialised in breaches in mortgage contracts relating to payment miscalculations. And he has previously insisted to The Bolton News that there was “nothing dishonest” about the scheme, which had raised £20m and was covered by insurance. But his industry watchdog, the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority closed down his firm, which also had offices in Wigan, in May 2019. An intervening agent, Bradford-based Gordons LLP, was appointed, amid claims he had breached solicitors’ operational and accounting rules.