Conveyancing firm hit with £33,000 fine

Basildon-based conveyancing firm PCS Legal has been fined £33,000 by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) for breaches of its accounts and complaints procedures.

Counsel for the PCS Legal, and its senior partners Stuart and Kate Forsdike, said the problems had arisen during the conveyancing boom triggered by the Stamp Duty holidays during the pandemic.

Legal Futures reported that the company was found to have transferred over £360,000 from client to office accounts in costs without any bills and was overwhelmed by a Covid-related work surge that prevented it from handling complaints adequately.

COMPLAINTS

The CLC listed nine complaints where the firm failed to respond adequately or at all to requests for information from the Legal Ombudsman and two further complaints where it failed to respond within the required timescales.

PCS Legal has since implemented changes to its complaints procedures, including appointing five members of staff to a complaints department.

An audit of its accounts processes by Hazlewoods found that a repetition of the breaches was unlikely.

However, the adjudication panel was concerned that there had been a high number of complaints made against the firm, suggesting that it was not taking seriously enough the issue of complaints handling.

REMORSE

The panel said the respondents had shown some, but not full, insight into what they had done wrong and had shown remorse.

All three respondents were reprimanded, with PCS Legal fined £23,000 and the senior partners, Stuart and Kate Forsdike, each fined £5,000.

The firm was also ordered to pay all of the unspecified costs.