Ruling notes lawyer’s emails showed urgency to access funds
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved a proposed interim consent order, although it questioned whether it should have, in the interim, replaced the lawyer with the designated alternate as attorney for property, given serious concerns regarding the lawyer’s actions.
Sullivan v. Culic et al, 2026 ONSC 23, involved an 84-year-old man, as well as his son and his daughter, who was the applicant in this case. The respondents were the man’s longtime lawyer and his law firm.
In December 2018, the man executed two continuing powers of attorney for property, which appointed:
- the lawyer as the primary attorney for property, with the daughter as the alternate attorney
- the daughter as the primary attorney for personal care, with the lawyer as the alternate attorney
The man, who received a vascular dementia diagnosis, could not make decisions concerning his personal care and property, as determined in a November 2023 decision. He moved from his residence into a long-term care facility.
The lawyer recommended selling the man’s real property and investing the proceeds. The sales were concluded by November 2024, with funds of approximately $405,000 deposited into the lawyer’s law firm trust account.
In April 2025, the lawyer notified the daughter that he had arranged a private loan with a 12 percent interest rate, secured with a collateral second mortgage on commercial property with substantial equity as an investment opportunity for the funds.
The lawyer did not tell the daughter that he had been the borrower in this transaction and that the first draw had occurred on Nov. 15, 2024, from the sale proceeds of her father’s real property, which the law firm was holding in trust.
Her father also had RBC investment accounts totalling approximately $700,000. The RBC refused to let the lawyer withdraw funds from the man’s investments because the lawyer failed to provide a sufficient legal opinion for how the proposed loan would comply with the requirements of ss. 37(3) and (4) of Ontario’s Substitute Decisions Act, 1992.
In an email to RBC, the lawyer said he planned to “hire the most expensive estates and trust lawyer at Gowlings,” so she could teach the bank a lesson it would not soon forget. He asked RBC to prepare the necessary documents to close the investment accounts, pay him $150,000 in trust, and send the balance to another bank in trust for the applicant’s father.
In an email dated August 5, 2025, the lawyer advised that it was time to transfer the man’s investments to the other bank. In an Aug. 21, 2025, email to the daughter, the lawyer asked her to ensure that RBC would pay him $150,000 in trust as soon as possible, rather than forcing him to “jump through hoops.”
The daughter requested a complete accounting of all funds received and expenses paid by the lawyer, who only provided such after repeated requests. The daughter expressed concern about numerous expenses, including the lawyer’s fees, payments to her brother, and transfers to the lawyer and his law firm personally, totalling around $118,000.
The daughter moved to amend her underlying notice of application to add her brother as a party and seek interim relief relating to the lawyer and his law firm. She asserted misappropriation of funds and other serious allegations against the lawyer, who was her father’s attorney for property.
The daughter’s counsel then advised the court that the parties had arrived at a consent order.
Interim order signed
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the proposed consent interim order as drafted. Despite signing the interim order, the court expressed reluctance to do so.
The court noted that the interim order did not seek the lawyer’s removal as attorney for property even though the relief on the underlying application included such removal.
The court questioned whether it should make an interim order removing the lawyer as attorney for property and replacing him with the daughter, as the alternate named by her father, rather than maintaining the lawyer’s role as attorney for property.
The court emphasized that the lawyer’s emails with RBC, the daughter, and the daughter’s counsel showed his desperation to access the funds.
The daughter’s counsel acknowledged it was a serious situation, but noted that his client did not ask to remove the lawyer as attorney for property in the interim. Counsel suggested that issuing such an order without notifying the son, the lawyer, and the Public Guardian and Trustee could lead to problems.
The daughter’s counsel noted that the interim order prevented the lawyer from accessing the RBC investment accounts and transferred the rest of the funds held in trust by the lawyer’s firm to the firm of the daughter’s counsel.
