Login
Melbourne sole practitioner reprimanded for failure to honour undertaking
A Melbourne sole practitioner has been condemned by a tribunal for failing to honour an undertaking on behalf of his client.
Naomi Neilson
Salih Tuncer, who practises out of Parker Lawyers and Consultants in West Melbourne, has been reprimanded by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) after pleading guilty to two counts of professional misconduct relating to an incident in 2018 and 2019.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Mr Tuncer was representing a man in a matrimonial dispute that required a valuation of a property prior to a mediation.
The valuers sent an invoice to Mr Tuncer and the wife’s solicitors and informed them the report would be released upon receipt of payment, which the valuers indicated would be made by the husband.
As the mediation was the following day, Mr Tuncer requested the report be “urgently” released and provided an undertaking that the valuers would be paid “as soon as possible”.
The undertaking was made in November 2018, but payment was not received until June 2019 despite multiple reminders.
The valuers made a complaint to the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner the same month, and an investigation commenced.
During the course of this investigation, Mr Tuncer failed to give an “open and frank account” of the incident by “wrongly advising” the commissioner that the wife would be paying half of the valuation.
VCAT senior member Reynah Tang said Mr Tuncer “continues” to conflate the agreement he alleged was reached with the wife to pay for half the valuation and the arrangements between himself and the valuers that he pay their fees as set out in the undertaking.
By doing so, Mr Tang said Mr Tuncer “glosses over the facts” and has breached the solicitor’s conduct rules.
“Overall, the outcome of these proceedings should serve as a statutory reminder to all solicitors about the care required when providing an undertaking in the course of legal practice that the solicitor is unable to satisfy themselves,” Mr Tang said.
In addition to the reprimand, Mr Tuncer was fined $1,000, will pay costs and was ordered to complete three hours of continuing professional development in relation to ethics and professional responsibility as it pertains to family law practice.
