Re Han Ngiap Juan

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Goh Joon Seng J
• Judgment Date: 30 January 1993
• Neutral Citation: [1993] SGHC 20
• Date: 30 January 1993
• Subject Matter: Whether dishonesty, fraud or deceit a necessary element of grossly improper conduct,s 83(2)(b) Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1990 Ed),Overcharging,Legal Profession,Whether amounting to grossly improper conduct
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 856 of 1992
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Defendant Counsel: B Mohan Singh (B Mohan Singh & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Plaintiff Counsel: Woo Bih Li (Bih Li & Lee)

Han Ngiap Juan (`the respondent`) was admitted as an advocate and solicitor in 1973. Following his admission he was employed briefly as a legal officer at the Legal Aid Bureau, and then in two companies. In 1983 he set up practice on his own account, under the name and style `NJ Han`, of which firm he was at all material times, and continues to be, the sole proprietor.

In May 1988, that is to say some five years after he commenced private practice, the respondent was instructed by Tan Siong Kern (`Mr Tan`) on behalf of Wee Tiong Co Pte Ltd (`the complainant`), to act for them in the purchase of a property known as No 85 Amoy Street, Singapore (`the property`), for a sum of $250,000. The complainant was subsequently substituted as the purchaser. The respondent proceeded to act in the purchase of the property on behalf of Mr Tan, and later on behalf of the complainant, as instructed. The respondent rendered a bill for his services to the complainant amounting to $19,997.85, inclusive of disbursements, on 23 June 1988, well before completion, which occurred sometime in September 1988. Out of this sum, the fee charged for acting in the purchase of the property was $6,725 (`the conveyancing fee`) and a sum of $3,000 was charged for the filing of an application for lapsing of caution (`the application fee`). The bill was paid in full by the complainant.

By a letter dated 26 September 1990 the complainant made a complaint about the respondent on various matters, including the bill dated 23 June 1988. The present proceedings arose out of the conveyancing fee and the application fee charged in this bill. The charge against the respondent was in the following terms:

You, Han Ngiap Juan, are charged that on or about 23 June 1988 you did charge Wee Tiong Co Pte Ltd, purchaser of the property known as No 85 Amoy Street, Singapore (hereafter referred to as `the said property`) a sum of:

(a) $6,725 for acting in the purchase of the said property when the correct amount should be $1,975; and

(b) $3,000 for filing an application for lapsing of caution in respect of the said property when the correct amount should be $100

which sums were far in excess of and disproportionate to what you were entitled to charge for the services you rendered and such overcharging by you amounts to grossly improper conduct in the discharge of your professional duty within the meaning of s 83(2)(b) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161).

The fact of overcharging and the amount by which each item was overcharged were not in dispute. The respondent admitted them in his first letter of explanation to the inquiry committee dated 26 November 1990.

A solicitor`s remuneration for conveyancing business is governed by a scale set out in the First Schedule to the Legal Profession (Solicitors` Remuneration) Order and the scale fee which was properly chargeable by the respondent for acting in the purchase of the property was $1,975. The respondent admitted that the conveyancing fee, which amounted to $6,725, should not have exceeded $1,975. There is no scale charge for the filing of an application for lapsing of caution. However, the Law Society asserted and the respondent admitted that the fee properly chargeable was $100, as against the $3,000 charged by the respondent.

Soon after the complaint was lodged the respondent gave the complainant credit for the total amount overcharged. The respondent contended that, although his conduct in overcharging was open to criticism, he was not guilty of grossly improper conduct within the meaning of s 83(2)(b) of the Legal Profession Act, such that there existed cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action against him.

Until the day before the hearing before the disciplinary committee commenced, the respondent`s explanations in letters to the inquiry committee and in his defence filed on 15 May 1992, after the inquiry committee had investigated the matter, were:

(i) that he had had no conveyancing experience prior to commencing practice in 1983;

(ii) that when he rendered the bill in question in 1988 he had had limited experience with conveyancing bills;

(iii) that his firm was a sole proprietorship, and that his staff at the material time had comprised one clerk;

(iv) that for the purpose of drawing up the bill in question he had procured a specimen bill from another firm of solicitors;

(v) that he had left the preparation of the bill to his clerk, and that he had accepted as correct the bill so prepared.

In view of these proffered explanations, counsel for the Law Society asked for production of the specimen bill, the name and address of the respondent`s clerk at the material time, inspection of the respondent`s records of files opened from the time he started practice to the time the bill in question was rendered on 23 June 1988, and inspection of his conveyancing bills for the same period before the disciplinary committee hearing. The respondent`s solicitors replied that the specimen bill had been destroyed after it was copied from; they gave the name and address of the clerk, and declined the request for inspection of documents on the basis that counsel for the Law Society was not entitled to such inspection. Counsel for the Law Society then put the respondent`s solicitors on notice that the documents requested for inspection should be brought to the disciplinary committee hearing to avoid any delay in the hearing in case the disciplinary committee should agree that such documents be produced for inspection and/or verification.

On 29 June 1992, the day before the commencement of the hearing before the disciplinary committee on 30 June 1992, the respondent`s solicitors wrote to counsel for the Law Society to give a different reason for the overcharge of the conveyancing fee, viz that the conveyancing fee was based on a valuation report exhibited in an affidavit in Originating Summons No 699 of 1987, in which the mortgagee of the property claimed possession of the property and the complainant`s director, Mr Tan, was the second defendant. The valuation in the report was $1,025,000. The significance of this was that the conveyancing fee charged by the respondent was the same as that chargeable for a property bought at $1m.

On the first day of the hearing on 30 June 1992, this letter was tendered to the disciplinary committee and counsel for the respondent confirmed the stand taken therein. Counsel for the Law Society informed the disciplinary committee that he had been invited only that morning to look at a list of files opened by the respondent. The list was not among the documents before the disciplinary committee and had not previously been produced or offered for inspection. No witness was called for the Law Society, whose counsel made his submissions on the facts then known, relying for his case on the respondent`s admissions of overcharging and the explanations proffered by the respondent to the Law Society and largely repeated in the defence filed.

The respondent`s counsel made a submission of no case to answer. The disciplinary committee ruled that there was a case for the respondent to answer and adjourned the hearing to 14 July 1992. On 14 July 1992 the respondent gave evidence. He also submitted a list of his cases from the time he started practice to around the time of the bill dated 23 June 1988 together with copies of his conveyancing bills for the same period. The thrust of the respondent`s evidence is stated below.

On the conveyancing fee

The respondent admitted to having worked out the two figures in the bill himself; they had not been derived from the specimen bill, and his clerk had simply typed out what he had written. When he was asked why his defence had stated that he had relied on the specimen bill, he said that he had relied on it for other items, although he must have known by the time his defence was filed that the other items were not part of the charge against him. As regards his reliance on his clerk, the respondent said that there was no contradiction between (a) his explanation to the inquiry committee and his defence and (b) his explanation to the disciplinary committee.

Although the respondent knew that he was obliged to charge the conveyancing fee according to scale, he had based it on the valuation report, which stuck in his mind because he had read the originating summons file in great detail in anticipation of that action proceeding. Up to the time of the bill dated 23 June 1988, he had done about 30 conveyancing transactions, of which nine or ten were aborted transactions....