‘Unfit’ lawyer banished for selling pensioner’s $1.3m home

A lawyer involved in selling a Gold Coast’s woman home against her will has learnt his fate.

The Mermaid Beach has been at the centre of an epic saga.

The final chapter has been written in the epic saga of a Gold Coast couple who found out they never legally owned the home they bought at auction.

A lawyer at the centre of the case, who falsely attested the execution of a mortgage by the home’s previous owner, has been struck off the solicitors roll.

In a decision handed down on June 12, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal judicial member Duncan McMeekin KC ruled that solicitor Stephen Richard Picken was guilty of misconduct so should have his name removed as he was “unfit”.

“To engage in criminal behaviour, as here, to do so in the course of his legal practise, as here, and thereby assist his client in defrauding a third party, as here, justifies a finding that Mr Picken is not a fit and proper person to engage in legal practise,” Mr McMeekin wrote.

“His character is indelibly marked by his criminal behaviour. His conduct shows a lack of honesty and integrity, traits which are fundamental to a legal practitioner. To permit his name to remain on the roll would seriously undermine the public’s confidence and trust in the legal profession and fail to deter others who might be inclined to behave in a like manner,” Mr McMeekin, a retired Supreme Court judge, wrote.

The Mermaid Beach home was sold in 2018.

Mr Picken who worked as a Queensland lawyer from 1995 until 2018, attested that Hind Issa - a retired, elderly woman with no source of income other than her pension, who owned a house in Mermaid Beach - had executed loan documents to mortgage her home in 2017.

Mr Picken later told police that Ms Issa’s son James Karbotli presented him with the loan and mortgage documents, which had already been signed by Ms Issa, and that he had been assured by Mr Karbotli that his mother had signed the documents in his presence.

Even though Ms Issa complained of fraud and tried to stop her home being sold by auction, in March 2018 her home was sold for $1.265m to Jess and Jacqueline Morecroft.

The title remained in Ms Issa’s name but the Morecrofts paid for and chose to continue living in the home from 2018 until 2023.

In 2023 the home sold for $2.66 million.

Mr Picken pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court on 24 March 2020 of falsely attesting and falsely certifying on 9 June 2017.

He was sentenced to a wholly-suspended six months jail term.

It was sold again for $2.66m in 2023.

Later Mr Picken gave evidence in a Supreme Court civil trial where he admitted falsely certifying the loan documents.

At that trial Justice Lincoln Crowley found that the mortgage of Ms Issa’s Francis St home was procured by the fraud of Mr Karbotli and the mortgage was null and void.

Justice Crowley also ruled that the mortgagees had no right to sell the home to the Morecrofts in 2018.

Justice Crowley found the Morecroft’s had no legal interest in the property because the title had never been transferred into their names.

“There is no basis to conclude that Ms Issa’s indefeasible legal interest should be postponed to the equitable interest of the purchasers,” Justice Crowley ruled in 2023.

At the time of Justice Crowley’s 2023 ruling Ms Issa was 83 and had alzheimer’s dementia.

Even though at the civil trial Mr Karbotli denied perpetrating any fraud and claimed his mother willingly and knowingly signed the mortgage, he later pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Last year Mr Karbotli was sentenced to one year’s probation and no conviction was recorded at Southport District Court after he pleaded guilty to two counts of obtaining another person’s identification information to commit fraud.

Mr Karbotli admitted using his mother’s identification documents to mortgage her Mermaid Beach home without permission to fraudulently obtain $1.8 million.

The court heard that Ms Issa and her family owned several convenience stores, takeaways and other small businesses before she retired.

Mr Picken stopped working as a lawyer on 30 June 2018 and has not held a practising certificate since that date.

He told QCAT that he had no wish to contest the bid to have his name removed from the roll, and he has no intention of seeking to practise again.

Mr McMeekin found that Mr Picken did not profit himself by his fraudulent conduct and that Mr Picken relied on the honesty of his client, Mr Karbotli, when certifying and attesting to the forged signatures of Ms Issa.

Mr Picken also co-operated with the police in their investigations.