The case against Benjamin Mire’s Trust Property Management is not to be continued after it ran out of time earlier this year.
The set-back is a humiliating failure by RICS, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, whose disciplinary regime is in tatters after a separate legal challenge has now called into question 317 previous disciplinary rulings.
RICS has launched two disciplinary actions against Mr Mire, who has been ruled unfit to hold a judicial appointment and whose companies are barred from advertising on the Leasehold Advisory Service.
The first action was against him personally in June 2015 and was reported on LKP here
Four charges concerning professional conduct was raised, including the finding of the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office:
“Mr Mire had failed to observe the standards that could reasonably be expected of a judicial office holder and that this failing was sufficiently serious to justify his removal from office.”
Mr Mire in fact resigned his judicial appointment before the finding, but it was made clear that the JCIO would have sacked him in any case.
The hearing on February 3-5 this year concerned Trust Property Management, where two out of three allegations were stopped before the case ran out of time on a Friday.
“The case was due to come back before the Panel on 27–28 June 2016, however as a member of the Panel could no longer sit, the proceedings could not continue and the RICS determined that it would be contrary to the public interest for fresh proceedings to be brought.”
The issue of legal costs is to be decided on December 1.
In the first hearing Mr Mire employed the services of barrister Marc Beaumont, who specialises in defending professionals in regulatory prosecutions (according to his Twitter account).
While defending a surveyor, Beaumont successfully challenged that a two-panel hearing was unlawfully constituted as it was in breach of RICS rules and in breach of the right to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Earlier this month, RICS apologised to 317 members whom it had either disciplined or struck off for breaches of RICS rule and offered a fresh review with three panellists.
Mr Beaumont is quote in Estates Gazette saying: “Striking someone off is the professional equivalent of a death sentence. For this to be done unlawfully is terrible.”
Doubtless many millions will have to be paid out in compo to chartered surveyors who, perhaps strictly speaking, are not the greatest luminaries of their profession.
LKP is not entirely surprised by this shambles.
One of the charges against Mr Mire last year, which was thrown out along with the rest, was that he had abused his judicial position by giving an interview to News on the Block.
It is doubtful whether any of the leaseholders managed by Trust thought this trifling matter was a serious issue.
LKP apologises to those leaseholders who we urged to have patience with the RICS disciplinary process.
Frankly, General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett’s court martial of Captain Blackadder was better organised than this fiasco.
Related posts:
Trust Property Management up before RICS disciplinary panel
RICS sets aside two-day disciplinary hearing for Benjamin Mire
Benjamin Mire fails to block RICS disciplinary investigation in the high court
RICS exonerates Benjamin Mire in shock ruling
RICS rejects complaint against managing agent Benjamin Mire
99% of FirstPort’s 3,800 service charge accounts are up to date
So typical of RICS regulation to mess it up
RICS The premier professional organisation has lost its credibility with us construction professional who were CIOB members are so disappointed as money has become the KING.
What a disgrace.
After some 30 yeasr as a chartered surveyor I was forced to resign (the process took over a year) and even after resignation they still demanded fees from me and recomended me as a surveyor for free advise!
I was subject to a discipliniary enquiry. It was a shambles.
In the RICS head quarters the desk allocated to me was broken and I could not use my laptop with my case on it as it kept crashing as the desk wobbled so much. I could not hear half of what was said, the air conditioning being broken, the windows wide open and building work going on right by the windows on scaffolding.
Then they could not find one printer in the whole building that worked!
The case agaisnt me presented by a bankrupted “accountant” of dubious qualifications and standing. The case against me was that my client account was some small sum about £100 over drawn despite it holding nearly £20,000 of my own money in it from property which I jointly own. The reason for it beign overdran being that I had paid a clients bill effectively out of my own money so that neither the tenant nor the local contractor suffered pending receipt of funds from the next months rent.
They had wanted to just fine me some huge sum but I refused and so it went to discipliniary committee where it was charied by a “I am wonderful and important” faceless idividual with two faceless lackies beside none of whom seemed the slightest intersted in reality, The RICS is a big boys club run by the big boys with the sole aim of promoting thier own companies at the expense of the samller ones. I could never allow my children to become chartered surveyors, and how it still holds a royal charter is beyound belief.
I am sure HRH would be horrified if they knew what the reality was! My situation, after 30 years as a chareterd surveyor, I now have largely moved on to other pastures I have wound down my company and woudl love to sue the hell out of them, but cant afford the luxury.