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NSW lawyer awaits discipline after unsatisfactory professional conduct finding
A solicitor alleged to have misled the NSW Land and Property Information service is yet to hear disciplinary orders after the Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that it amounted to unsatisfactory professional conduct, despite it not being intentional.
Naomi Neilson
The Council of the NSW Law Society was unsuccessful in pursuing a professional misconduct finding, but the state’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) did find solicitor Jim Kekatos guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct for lodging a caveat removal request for a property despite the unrelated attached orders.
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In August 2020, the Law Society council alleged that Mr Kekatos misled the NSW Land and Property Information (LPI) when requesting the removal of two caveats registered on a property located in the Greater Sydney suburb Green Valley. He attached a judgement made on 7 August 2015 that did not relate to the property, but the caveats were still removed from the registrar a month later.
The Law Society alleged that the August orders related to other caveats not relating to the two in the request and that when Mr Kekatos lodged the caveat removal request, “he knew or ought to have known the orders did not refer or relate”. The council accused him of acting “deliberately or recklessly” over this period.
However, NCAT disagreed: “The Tribunal came to the view, on the evidence before it, that it cannot be comfortably satisfied… that Mr Kekatos acted intentionally or recklessly in relation to lodging the caveat removal request.”
In his reply, Mr Kekatos admitted to the matters but, while conceding the wording may have been potentially misleading, said that it was not intentional. His position remained that he had made a mistake and, from the first moment he was made aware of it, continued to always admit that he had made an error in the request.
Overall, the Tribunal found that Mr Kekatos’ evidence was honest and open and that while he conceded to act incompetently, at no stage was it with intent to mislead. NCAT also took into consideration that it was a “one-off occurrence”.
“Nevertheless, Mr Kekatos’ conduct in relation to the caveat removal request falls short of the standard of competence or diligence that a member of the public is entitled to expect from a reasonably competent lawyer, and it was appropriate for him to have made that admission,” the NCAT judgement read.
The entire judgement can be found on AustLII: Council of the Law Society of New South Wales v Kekatos [2021] NSWCATOD 90 (2 July 2021).
