The Law Society of Scotland’s client protection fund has paid out £780,000 to two homebuyers, 13 years after a solicitor fraud which led to them being deprived of the title to the Aberdeen flats they thought they owned.

The Herald revealed in 2014 how TV designer Sinclair Brebner and his neighbour engineer Colin Torr have been fighting for compensation since first discovering in 2007 that ‘their’ flats belonged to the trustee in bankruptcy of the man who had sold them, businessman David Pocock.

Prior to The Herald’s intervention, the Law Society was considering offering the 2002 purchase price of the flats by way of compensation, or around £280,000, which would have bankrupted the innocent homebuyers. Now it has paid the £650,000 market value of the flats plus costs of £130,000 for multi-year litigation, which the claimants had to undergo before the fund would consider any pay-out.

A Law Society spokesperson said: “We realise this has been a long and difficult period for Mr Brebner who, through no fault of his own, was left without proper title to a property he bought in good faith. By working with him as well as his legal and political representatives, we are pleased to have ensured the value of the property has been reimbursed.”

Mr Brebner said: “I feel enormous relief that a resolution is progressing. However there are outstanding issues such as compensation for years of distress and health problems. A full independent enquiry into the case is needed.”

Falsified title deeds to the flats, substituting Mr Pocock’s company Howemoss for the actual owner Mr Pocock, were first uncovered as early as 2003 by the Registers of Scotland, and reported privately by a judicial factor appointed by the Law Society of Scotland. But it was not until 2007 that either Mr Brebner or Mr Torr were first made aware by their respective solicitors that more than four years after their supposed purchase, there were no deeds, and there might be a problem.

Last year, following The Herald’s reports on this case and one in West Lothian where four families are still awaiting their title deeds after 15 years, the Law Society commissioned a review from retired Sheriff-Principal Edward Bowen.

The sheriff concluded that the misnamed Guarantee Fund had been unable to act for 10 years in the Aberdeen case, due to requiring “clear proof or evidence of fraud”.

The evidence that did exist was that in 2002 law firm Jamieson & Cradock was shut down by the Court of Session, a judicial factor appointed, and solicitor Russell Taylor suspended for misconduct; Mr Taylor, Mr Pocock and seven other defendants were brought to trial in the High Court for an alleged £7m property fraud in March 2010, but in Sheriff Bowen’s words, "it foundered on a technicality" involving electronic copies of documents ; and most obviously, the Scottish Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal reviewed Mr Taylor’s case in 2010 and ruled he had “deceived clients, fellow agents and lenders" in a "systematic, disgraceful and dishonourable" way – and struck him off.

Nevertheless, the Law Society determined that its Guarantee Fund could do nothing until the claimants had exhausted every legal avenue. Mr Brebner was advised to sue Mr Taylor, which failed because the struck-off solicitor had not acted for Mr Brebner in the first place. He and Mr Torr were also advised they had to defend, at six-figure cost, the successful legal action by Mr Pocock’s trustee in bankruptcy to establish his lawful title to the properties.

Sheriff Bowen said: “The need to do that has protracted the situation as well as creating the perception of members of the legal profession pointing the finger of blame at each other with no one prepared to take ultimate responsibility.”

He recommended that the fund be able to compensate victims in situations of prima facie fraud, coming into line with English practice , and be renamed a compensation fund.

The Law Society of Scotland said the fund had been renamed the Client Protection Fund. “Other recommendations, such as widening the scope of the fund, would require changes to legislation and we have been in discussion with Scottish Ministers in the hope time can be found in the next term of the Scottish Parliament for a new Bill to allow for a number of legal reforms.”

It said the sheriff had recognised that the cases were “highly unusual and complex and did not suggest a fundamental problem with conveyancing practice”. Recommendations relating to the West Lothian cases were a matter for housebuilders and the Scottish Government. Those cases have yet to be resolved.

Mr Torr said: “The market value may be fair but the way I have had to battle so hard for so many years to get it has been the cost to me – it was traumatic when a solicitor told me I might get £150,000.”

He added: “It’s misleading to call it a guarantee fund as it was nothing of the sort, if they were really protecting the interests of the people suffering, they could have done more, they could have stepped in and bought the flat and then worked through the legal issues.”

Sheriff Bowen also noted that the right of a trustee or liquidator to hang onto a bankrupt’s ill-gotten gains was due to a controversial Law Lords ruling on a Scottish case in 2004 which was “regarded in many quarters as unsatisfactory”, and which should be examined by the Scottish Law Commission and Scottish Parliament.

Mr Brebner’s brother-in-law John Morrison, who has fought the case tirelessly, commented: “Anyone buying from an individual close to bankruptcy or a company close to being liquidated should be warned off.”

But complaints brought on Mr Brebner’s behalf last year against the two firms of solicitors involved in the original conveyancing were dismissed by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as time-barred, and the circumstances deemed “not exceptional”.

Mr Brebner also brought a complaint against Registers of Scotland, for failing to raise any alarm between 2003 and 2007.

RoS responded that it had cooperated with the Law Society but it was “not appropriate to apply our normal complaints procedure”.