A high-profile property industry evictions solicitor, author, speaker and guru is in hot water after the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) announced that she has been suspended.

Julie Condliffe (main image, inset) who is a regular figure on the UK’s landlord conference circuit, is well known for running evictions firm Creative Legal Solutions Solicitors Ltd, with offices in London and Northamptonshire, which claims to be the ‘landlord’s preferred solicitor’.

Condliffe’s prohibition and her firm’s closure by the SRA has been announced to ‘protect the public’ ahead of a hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The allegations against her and her company remain unproven until then.

But the reason given by the SRA for its actions includes that ‘there is reason to suspect dishonesty on the part of Ms Condliffe in connection with her practice as a solicitor’ and that [she] ‘has failed to comply with paragraph 1(1)( c) Schedule 1 Solicitors Act 1974’.

Prosecution

Condliffe is already subject to legal action over her work with non-regulated investment company Property Pro World Limited.  The SRA claims that between 22 October 2018 and September 2019 she misled investors into believing that following receipt of the completed transfer form, completion monies and sourcing fee, she would complete the transfer of a property but failed to do so.

It also claims that Condliffe misled the SRA on 14 February 2022 by stating that the investors entered into a standard common-law management tenancy with an option to purchase when ‘this was not true.’

Also, it is claimed that she stated during a 16 January 2023 hearing that the investors involved wanted a residential purchase lease option until they were ready to finalise the registration process, ‘when this was untrue’.

The Negotiator has approached Condliffe for comment.

Read more about SRA actions.