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Letter: Solicitor\u2019s tone was inappropriate<\/p>\n
A solicitor who continued to act for both executors of an estate after a dispute arose between them has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).<\/p>\n
Susan Mary Carpenter also sent a letter to one of them that was \u201cderogatory and personal in tone\u201d.<\/p>\n
The SRA reached a regulatory settlement agreement with the solicitor, who works at Powell & Co in Sutton Coldfield, meaning that she will not be referred to a disciplinary tribunal.<\/p>\n
The agreement recounted that Ms Carpenter was instructed in May 2022 by executors \u2018A\u2019 and \u2018B\u2019 to act in the administration of their mother\u2019s estate, which included a property that B and their family occupied.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the administration of the estate, a dispute arose about the property between executor A as a beneficiary of the estate and executor B as the occupant of the property. The executors\u2019 respective interests then conflicted, and they were no longer aligned in their duties as executors to administer the estate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result of the dispute, Ms Carpenter\u2019s duty to act in the best interests of the executors became conflicted. However, Ms Carpenter continued to act for executor A and executor B.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February 2025, Ms Carpenter sent a letter to B demanding they vacate the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe content of that letter went beyond what would be considered appropriate professional communication as it was derogatory and personal in tone, inappropriate in a solicitor-client relationship and likely to cause, and did indeed cause, distress to the recipient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Carpenter admitted that she acted where there was a conflict and failed to act in her clients\u2019 best interests, in breach of SRA rules.<\/p>\n
By sending the letter, meanwhile, she failed to act with independence, damaged public trust and again did not act in her client\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n
In mitigation, Ms Carpenter said there was a low risk of repetition, she had a hitherto clean regulatory record, and had co-operated with the SRA investigation.<\/p>\n
The SRA said a written rebuke was an appropriate sanction as she was an experienced solicitor \u2013 she qualified in 2003 \u2013 who had been \u201creckless as to her regulatory obligations\u201d. The letter had \u201ca significant impact on executor B\u201d, it noted.<\/p>\n
Further, she continued to act despite there being an \u201cevident conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny less serious sanction\/outcome would be inappropriate to protect the public and public interest,\u201d the SRA said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letter: Solicitor\u2019s tone was inappropriate A solicitor who continued to act for both executors of an estate after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,85,46,266,267],"class_list":["post-569670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}