Catherine Joan Brassington v Knights Professional Services Limited (trading as ‘Knights’)

A Court of Protection deputy who engages solicitors to provide professional services for the protected person does not assume personal liability merely because the engagement letter is addressed to and signed by the deputy. The question is one of contractual construction, assessed in the statutory and factual context of the deputyship.

Where the deputy contracts solely as the protected person’s statutory agent, the protected person is the true client and the deputy is not personally liable for remuneration or expenses disallowed on assessment by the Senior Courts Costs Office. A solicitor’s lien cannot be asserted against a deputy who was neither the client nor personally liable for the relevant costs.

The claimant was a solicitor employed by the defendant firm and acted as a professional deputy for persons lacking capacity. She had signed engagement letters under which the defendant agreed to provide professional deputyship services. The defendant later claimed that she was personally liable for work in progress which could not be recovered from the protected persons following costs assessment, and threatened to rely on a solicitor’s lien over deputyship files.

The claimant issued a Part 8 claim seeking declarations that she was not personally liable and that no lien could be asserted. She applied for summary judgment under CPR 24. The central issues were the construction of the engagement letters, the capacity in which the claimant contracted, and the consequences for the defendant’s alleged lien.

1. Summary judgment granted. The engagement letters were construed in the claimant’s favour. She contracted solely as deputy and agent for each protected person, and accepted no personal liability for the defendant’s remuneration or expenses.
2. The relevant surrounding circumstances included the statutory framework governing Court of Protection deputyships, the claimant’s employment by the defendant, the nature of her professional appointment, and the parties’ previous and expected practice. Those matters were relevant to identifying the contracting parties and the capacity in which the claimant acted.
3. The fact that the letters were addressed to the claimant and used the expression “you” did not establish personal contracting. The protected persons lacked capacity and therefore had to act through their appointed deputy. The defendant’s records and statements of account identified the protected person as the client, which accorded with the commercial reality that the services were provided for that person’s benefit.
4. Paragraph 4.3 of the engagement letters did not create an independent liability. It operated only if the claimant was already responsible for payment. It could not convert an agency engagement into a personal undertaking to bear irrecoverable costs, particularly where the defendant’s interpretation would expose professional and family co-deputies to an onerous liability without informed consent.
5. The court noted that the standard letter was poorly suited to deputyship work, especially its provision for monthly invoicing, which was inconsistent with the Court of Protection costs regime. That observation assisted construction but did not involve rewriting the contract.
6. No solicitor’s lien could be asserted against the claimant because she was neither the defendant’s client nor personally liable for its costs. In any event, the work in progress represented sums disallowed on assessment, for which the protected persons were not liable. Consequential matters, including costs and any application for permission to appeal, were adjourned for determination on paper.