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The Supreme Court in Cyprus has ordered a Paphos based lawyer to pay around €120,000 in compensation for money lost over a property contract he prepared for his clients, a British couple, over a decade ago.
  

This is believed to be the first time a Cypriot lawyer has been found professionally negligent by the highest court in the land and made to compensate for the money his clients lost.
 

Lawyers in Cyprus have previously avoided or directly refused to take on their colleagues in any negligence lawsuit in Cyprus.
 

This raises the prospect of more negligence cases being filed against lawyers in property cases, ringing alarm bells within the legal community.

The Supreme Court judges set out the basic duties of a lawyer when delivering their services outside of the courtroom. These include that the lawyer advises his client with care, brings to his attention any problems, any inherent dangers, warns him of them and protects his interests. Despite the fact there is no legal obligation to do so, prudent lawyers should also aim to receive all instructions in writing, especially in case of immoveable property.

The appeals court highlighted that the main aim of any property case was to acquire the relevant title deed.

“In the case of purchasing land, the ultimate aim is to secure, either immediately or in a time agreed upon, the title deeds for his client,” said the ruling.

The court employed a textbook check list for lawyers working on property cases. “The first issue the lawyer is obliged to investigate is the legality of the title deed of the intended vendor and that there are no registered charges or other legal impediments which could affect in future the transfer to his client of a title free of any encumbrances.”

On top of the duty to check for any charges registered against a property, lawyers will now be judged in future lawsuits on whether they fulfilled their duty “to warn his client of the dangers emanating from the possible insolvency of the vendor”.

In this case, it was deemed that the defendant had not met his duties, showing professional negligence. As a result he was ordered to compensate his former clients in a way which would leave them in the same position as they would be in had the lawyer fulfilled his duties.

  
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