Mr van Noort received instructions from the K family in February 2020 to assist in seeking a subsidy for their father’s residential care. Mr van Noort held himself out as an expert in this area. The father had settled a trust ten years prior, but there were scant records in relation to the trust and Mr van Noort therefore attempted to reconstruct the trust’s dealings in a way that would assist with the subsidy application. His reconstruction was incorrect in a number of ways and the documents were prepared in backdated form. These documents were never filed, and Mr van Noort said he intended to declare the reconstruction and backdating before registering them. When the family sought to correct certain errors in the documents, Mr van Noort failed to correct these and instead advised them to proceed with the documents as drafted. Had those documents been filed, the Ministry of Social Development would have been provided with a false account of the movement of funds.

In addition, Mr van Noort failed to provide all members of the family with an engagement letter. He also failed to give prompt responses to their communications, and this delayed the progress of the retainer. There were also issues with how he completed land transfer documents, in particular authority and instruction forms and land transfer tax statements (which required redrafting after the K family engaged new solicitors in September 2020).

The Tribunal considered the conduct “moderately serious”. The Tribunal noted that Mr van Noort had two previous disciplinary findings, “some of which mirrored his failings in the present case”. In terms of mitigating features, the Tribunal regarded Mr van Noort’s acceptance of the charge as a mitigating feature, as was the fact that the K family had contributed to the delay in progressing the retainer to some extent. Mr van Noort had also provided evidence of health issues and had retired from practice.

In terms of penalty, the Tribunal considered a fine of $7,000 was appropriate. It declined to censure Mr van Noort as it did not consider it meaningful for a practitioner who is at the end of their career. The Tribunal also ordered Mr van Noort to pay costs.