A solicitor with nearly five decades of professional experience has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) after misleading a conveyancing client about the registration of her property.
Simon Langford, who was admitted as a solicitor in 1979, admitted all allegations brought against him, including dishonestly providing false information to a client. He also repeatedly failed to cooperate with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) during its investigation.
Langford was the owner, manager and sole solicitor of Sayers Solicitors, a Harrow-based firm specialising in conveyancing. He also served as the firm’s compliance officer and money laundering reporting officer.
The case concerned a house purchase completed in 2019. As part of the transaction, Langford’s firm was responsible for registering the client’s ownership with HM Land Registry.
A year after completion, the client became concerned when the property did not appear on sold-property price websites. Over the following three years, Langford gave assurances on as many as seven occasions that the registration application was being dealt with, claiming that it was ‘back in’ or had been ‘lodged’.
However, the client discovered in 2023 that no further application had been submitted since the firm’s original application was rejected in 2019. She subsequently reported the matter to the SRA.
A separate matter involved a lease extension. Langford’s firm had undertaken to submit the registration application within three days of completion. Despite lawyers for the purchasers making 26 emails and 22 telephone calls over a period of nine months, the lease extension remained unregistered.
The SRA also faced difficulties when attempting to investigate Langford’s conduct, requiring numerous attempts to contact him.
In his response to the regulator, Langford acknowledged that his actions and failures had fallen below both his usual standards and the professional standards expected of a solicitor. He said he deeply regretted the circumstances that had led to the complaints.
In mitigation, Langford said the unexpected death of his business partner in 2017 had placed him under significant pressure as he attempted to keep the practice running. He told the tribunal that he would have preferred to leave the profession without the allegations affecting his reputation, but had found himself in difficulties that he was unable to resolve.
The SDT concluded that the misconduct had caused significant harm to the reputation of the legal profession. It described the misconduct as deliberate, calculated and repeated.
Langford was struck off the roll of solicitors and ordered to pay £45,630 in costs. The SRA subsequently intervened in the firm following the tribunal hearing.
