A licensed conveyancer has been banned from working at any regulated legal practice after being found guilty of forging client signatures on mortgage documents and misleading both her firm and the Land Registry.

Tara Khan, who was working at Mackrell Solicitors in Covent Garden, was issued with a Section 43 order by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ordered to pay costs of £1,650.

The SRA found Khan had forged clients’ signatures on a mortgage deed, falsely claiming she had witnessed them sign it.

Fabricated evidence

To cover up the forgery, Khan told her firm she had received an email from the clients containing their signed deed. When this was questioned, she fabricated the email and sent it to colleagues as proof.

Khan also falsely claimed her supervisor had instructed her to create the deed, misrepresented clients on Land Registry charges, and falsified an e-RX1 form, which is used to show a proprietor’s consent had been obtained.

Khan’s conduct was serious and represents a risk that makes regulatory action via a section 43 order appropriate.”

In addition, the SRA discovered that during her employment, Khan had misused her HM Land Registry portal access for personal benefit, carrying out searches and making applications on a property owned by her father on behalf of her mother, without his knowledge or the firm’s consent.

And, in June 2024, she filed a unilateral e-UN1 notice with HM Land Registry, which is used to register a claim on a property, although she did not have the authority to do so as, by then, she had left Mackrell Solicitors.

In its concluding statement, the SRA said: “Khan’s conduct was serious and represents a risk that makes regulatory action via a section 43 order appropriate.”

Khan’s last known address was in Hayes, west London.

You can read the full judgement here.