A SOLICITOR who engaged in fraudulent practices to obtain loans on properties, leaving a financial institution with losses of €1.25 million loss, has been struck off by the High Court.
Mary Miley, formerly practising as Miley and Co Solicitors, Rathdrum, Wicklow, obtained money by pretending she was acting for a borrower called Mary Ann Dore, which was in fact herself using her married name, and used some €570,000 of that for her own personal benefit, the court heard.
Secured Property Loans Ltd is seeking to recover the money and yesterday secured an order freezing Ms Miley’s assets below €1.25 million. High Court president Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns also agreed to a Law Society request to have papers referred to the DPP.
The judge ordered Ms Miley to make restitution to those parties who are at a loss as a result of her activities and to surrender her passport to the court.
Her solicitor Robert Dore said she was consenting to all the orders being sought by the society but was making no admission of criminal wrongdoing.
The judge ordered Ms Miley to make restitution of €225,515 to a former woman client who was left at a loss of that amount because Ms Miley had given undertakings for a loan on two properties in Bray, Wicklow, when she had no instructions to do so.
Ms Miley had represented to the Alliance Credit Company that an undischarged bankrupt was the owner of the properties when in fact they belonged to the woman client, it was stated.
The court further ordered Ms Miley to make restitution to another couple left out of pocket for €9,769 after she failed to comply with undertakings which she gave on their behalf to a lending institution. She was also ordered to hand over all title deed documents in her possession in relation to the fraudulent acts.
Earlier, Shane Murphy SC, for the Law Society, told the court the strike-off order was being sought over multiple dishonest and fraudulent acts of which Ms Miley had been found guilty by a solicitors disciplinary tribunal.
The most serious was in relation to Secured Property Loans, Mr Murphy said. Ms Miley had been found guilty of 52 allegations of misconduct over five loans she obtained in 2005/06 for sums totalling €995,000 and the total now owed to the financial company stood at €1.25 million.
Mr Murphy said Ms Miley had forged and/or falsified documents provided to the financial institution, including two for which she used her married name to get the loan for €570,000 when she and the “borrower” were one and the same person.
In an affidavit from the Law Society’s deputy head of complaints and client relations section, Anthony Watson said she used a number of false or forged documents to obtain the loans. These included a falsified page from a passport, a forged notification of a grant of planning permission by Wexford County Council for a house in support of the loan application for “Mary Ann Dore” and false payslips and P60 forms in the same name for 2005 and 2006.
She also used a forged AIB bank statement and a fake ESB bill to Mary Dore, he said.
She also fraudulently obtained or assisted in obtaining two loans in 2007 from Secured Property Loans in the name of a builder client for €200,000 and submitted a falsified valuation for a four-bedroom house at Castlebora, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, he added.
A €220,000 loan in 2008 was fraudulently obtained for another man who was allegedly an employee of the builder client but for whom she supplied false documents, including a driving licence.
The loan related to a property in Wicklow town which this client was supposedly offering as security, but which he did not own.
The court heard Ms Miley had also been found guilty of a number of other misconduct allegations.