Real-estate lawyer fined for professional misconduct

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This article was published 26/11/2018 (2844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHAT started as an error with the sale of Stonewall land lots has ended with a Winnipeg real-estate lawyer being fined for professional misconduct.

In a Nov. 14 decision by the Law Society of Manitoba’s discipline committee, Neil William Sullivan was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and $30,000 in costs. As part of a joint agreement with Sullivan’s lawyer, the law society also cancelled his practising certificate and issued a new one with the condition he successfully complete a course in real estate law, practice and ethics within three months.

In March, the society found Sullivan guilty of professional misconduct after transferring the titles of three lots instead of two to clients.

In its written decision, the society said the mixup happened in March 2016 when Sullivan represented a couple purchasing the lots in a Stonewall suburb. The couple bought two lots for $263,000. They were offered the third lot for $90,000 but did not want to purchase the extra land.

When the couple tried to pay their property taxes in June 2016, they learned they were registered as the owners of all three lots.

When the couple contacted Sullivan, he told them in an email “that sounds like good news,” the decision states. Sullivan advised the couple to take down the vendor’s for-sale sign and told them “if they try to put it up again, tell them they’re trespassing,” adding it sounds like the vendor is “just a little off their rocker,” the March decision states.

Even “the most kindly interpretation” of this approach is “wait and see if they catch on,” the law society said.

The situation came to light again in October 2016 when the vendor tried to pay property tax on the third lot and was told she didn’t own it.

After contacting Sullivan, all three lots were transferred back to the vendor, and the two lots the couple wanted were transferred to them.

At his hearing last winter, Sullivan argued his mistake was innocent and minor and his only real fault was not tracking the file after he was informed of the mixup.

The law society rejected Sullivan’s claims the failures were minor and of little consequence, ruling his insistence the error was nothing more than a minor typographical error was “disingenuous at best.” The society also criticized Sullivan’s behaviour toward his clients, which demonstrated a “careless and cavalier attitude“ and “was also wrong.”

danton.unger@freepress.mb.ca