UK solicitor agrees to quit roll after dishonestly changing a document
Kiran Yadav was found to have dishonestly amended a document to correct an error on a lease she had made years earlier.
A UK solicitor has agreed to voluntarily remove her name from the roll after she was found to have dishonestly amended a document to correct an error on a lease she had made years earlier.
Kiran Yadav was an assistant solicitor with Jeffrey Green Russell Limited (JGRL) when the firm closed and the majority of its business assets, including Yadav’s employment, was transferred to Ince Gordon Dadds LLP.
Instructions were originally provided to JGRL and then transferred to Gordan Dadds in relation to a 999-year lease. In 2015, Yadav, then a solicitor, provided the client with a report on the lease, which incorrectly stated there was no prohibition on underletting and charging.
In 2018, the client wanted to understand if there was a restriction on underletting and requested a copy of any lease summary prepared by the firm.
Yadav emailed the client the report stating it was a copy of the one she had originally provided. The report had been amended by Yadav to remove the previous confirmation about underletting. The changed report stated there was an ‘absolute prohibition’ on underletting.
Over a week later, Yadav emailed her firm’s internal risk team and said she had mistakenly sent an incorrect version of the report. She claimed she had two reports on her file due to ‘the merger of the systems between [JGRL] and [the firm]…and different operating systems’ one report which stated underletting was prohibited and the other said it was not.
An internal investigation found that Yadav had altered the initial report and then sent the new report to the client.
Yadav admitted her conduct was dishonest.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority said that when considering the sanction it had taken into account confidential information about medical and personal circumstances.
As well as voluntarily removing herself from the roll, Yadav will not apply for re-admission to the roll for at least 10 years, starting from 1 August 2020, and must pay the costs of the SRA investigation totalling £1,400.
