LPA: Son did not recognise his mother’s signature
A young lawyer who changed dates on lasting powers of attorney (LPAs) and misled clients about when they were sent to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has been struck off.
Matthew Roy Church, aged 26 at the time, admitted acting dishonestly by submitting LPA applications “purportedly signed and dated by the donors and attorneys on the dates stated” when he knew those dates were misleading.
He also admitted acting dishonestly by misleading clients about when the forms were sent to the OPG.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) approved a statement of agreed facts and outcome, in which the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said Mr Church, admitted in 2019, worked in the wills and probate department of Essex firm Harvey Copping & Harrison until he left for another firm in March 2022.
He visited a care home on 24 September 2021 to get a health and welfare LPA signed for Person A1. Person A1 and her son, Person A2, signed the LPA in his presence.
Mr Church told Person A2 that he could expect the final version of the LPA by December that year. Person A2 called the solicitor in February 2022 to “express his concern” about the behaviour of his mother’s siblings, mentioning that his mother failed a mental capacity assessment four days after signing the LPA.
Mr Church told him that the OPG was “still clearing the backlog of applications”, but his case would be “expedited” because it had been on the system for 20 weeks.
Person A2 received the health and welfare LPA in April 2022, and “immediately noticed” that the signatures were dated 2 December 2021 and said Person A1’s signature “was not the signature of his mother”.
Person A2 reported his concerns to Harvey Copping & Harrison, which found that the OPG had rejected the original LPA in November 2021 and it had been resubmitted on 2 December.
There was nothing on the file to indicate the clients had been told about this and nothing in Mr Church’s diary to indicate he met them that day to have the fresh LPA signed.
The SDT detailed two other files where something similar happened.
The solicitor admitted acting dishonestly in submitting the LPAs when he knew the stated dates of the various signatures were misleading, and for misleading two of the clients about the progress of their matters.
The SRA said Mr Church “acted in a way to conceal errors that he had made”, that his conduct “cannot be described as spontaneous, and was repeated” and he acted in breach of a position of trust.
He had “caused loss and harm to vulnerable people” and caused “the Court of Protection to be misled or created a risk of misleading the court”.
However, he had “made open and frank admissions at an early stage and fully cooperated” with the SRA.
In non-agreed mitigation, Mr Church said that during the Covid period he had “dealt with abnormal working conditions” when arranging meetings was difficult, and “handling paperwork was challenging for the firm, which did not have modern paperless systems”. It was, he claimed, “a chaotic working environment”.
He was struck off by the SDT and, taking into account his “limited means”, ordered to pay costs of £1,000.
Leave a Comment