Vancouver real estate lawyer suspended 6 weeks for professional misconduct

A Vancouver lawyer has agreed to a six-week suspension for committing several instances of professional misconduct.

A Vancouver lawyer has agreed to a six-week suspension for committing several instances of professional misconduct.

The consent agreement between Gary (Kin Ip) Lo and the Law Society of B.C. was approved on Sept. 15, but posted online last week. 

The agreement details a variety of misconduct that occurred between 2019 and 2021, including repeatedly failing to disclose that a client had not provided sufficient funds for a real estate transaction, failing to adequately inform clients of a conflict of interest and failing to ensure he collected required client identification information on four occasions.

In May 2019, Lo was contacted by a corporate client's real estate agent, who asked if he had received cheques totalling $988,000, which were meant to be held in his trust account as deposits for the purchase of properties in Vancouver.

The real estate agent included images of bank drafts made out to Lo's law corporation "purporting to represent that (the client) had provided (the deposits)," according to the consent agreement.

Lo told the agent he had not received them, and was provided with a bank draft for $150,000 later that day.

"The lawyer did not ask (his client) why there appeared to be bank drafts payable to the law corporation for the (deposits) that had not been provided to him, or if the vendors of the (properties) were aware the (deposits) … had not been provided," the agreement reads.