A solicitor retained to advise on loan and mortgage documents is not required to form or express a view on the fairness or reasonableness of the underlying transaction for which the loan funds are to be used. Where the solicitor learns facts during the retainer that put the client's interests at risk, the duty may extend to advising the client to seek independent legal and financial advice, but if that advice is clearly given and the solicitor is reasonably entitled to believe the client understood it, the duty is discharged. The 'independent advice' cases concerning antidotes to unconscionability do not expand the scope of a solicitor's professional duty of care beyond the retainer.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 19 later cases that cite this judgment.
4 of the 19 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.