Legal Reform - solicitors must give clients interest on money held on their behalf

[Brendan Burgess]

Section 42 requires the Authority to make regulations to require a legal practitioner either—
• to open and maintain a separate deposit account at a bank for the benefit of the client for the holding of money received for or on account of the client, or
• to pay to such client a sum equivalent to the interest which would have accrued if the money so received had been held on deposit by that legal practitioner.

The section also provides a saver in relation to interest received by the legal practitioner on moneys deposited at a bank, being moneys received or held for or on account of his or her clients generally.

 

[Purple]

I remember a few years back when one of the building societies de-mutualised solicitors gained shares on the back of client accounts they held there. It struck me as strange that they gained shares for deposits which they didn’t own. I wonder if this will be addressed; deriving a material benefit from other people’s money.

 

[nuac]

There are already regulations in force re payment of interest to clients on monies held in clients' account