The hits just keep on coming for Richmond real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo.
The Richmond News reported last week how Guo narrowly escaped being disbarred by the Law Society of BC for a catalogue of professional misconduct.
Instead, the society’s disciplinary panel banned the lawyer from practicing for a year, starting next month, and ordered her to pay its costs totaling $47,329.44.
A judge’s decision published Tuesday by the BC Supreme Court revealed that the Guo Law Corporation has been ordered to pay legal costs of almost $100,000 after she lost a lawsuit in the summer, filed by contractors hired to renovate her No. 3 Road offices in Richmond.
Earlier this year, she was ordered to pay $311,000, plus interest, to IRL Construction, as part of a disputed $740,000 renovation bill.
A sub-contractor, Lunniss Developments Ltd., was awarded more than $196,000 from IRL which, in turn, was ruled to have breached its contract.
Madame Justice Laura Gerow ruled this week that IRL was to be awarded costs of $68,855.86 in its action against Guo Law and that Lunniss be awarded costs of $28,665.14 against Guo Law.
“Given the history of Guo Law refusing or neglecting to respond to the requests to settle orders or to respond to correspondence from counsel for IRL and Lunniss, I am dispensing with the requirement for a representative of Guo Law to endorse the order,” added Gerow in her conclusion.
Guo, who represented herself at the court hearing last month over legal costs, claimed that she had not received IRL’s “bill of costs” and that her firm didn’t have a contract with the sub-contractor Lunniss, therefore “should not have to pay Lunniss’ bill of costs, or in the alternative, IRL should be responsible for half of Lunniss’ costs.”
She also stated that her firm had already “suffered a financial loss” from the lawsuit.
Aside from lawsuits and professional misconduct charges, Guo has never been far from the headlines.
Back in 2018, she failed in a very public bid to become Richmond’s mayor at the last civic election.
During that election run, she was in trouble with the aforementioned Law Society, which later ruled that she failed to properly supervise her bookkeeper, improperly delegated trust accounting to him and later misappropriated millions of dollars in trust funds.
The governing body had sought a disciplinary penalty of disbarment after Guo committed professional misconduct by failing to supervise her employees, failing to comply with trust accounting rules, and leaving a series of blank signed trust cheques with her bookkeeper, which facilitated the bookkeeper’s theft of $7.5 million of client trust funds.
The panel also found earlier this year that Guo misappropriated trust funds from some clients, in order to replace funds missing from other clients’ trust accounts that were needed to complete pending real estate transactions.
However, given that some of her misconduct was motivated by an intention to ensure pending transactions were completed in time and that all clients affected were repaid, the society’s disciplinary panel decided to suspend Guo, as opposed to disbarment.
The panel also noted that Guo currently has no access to a trust account and is practicing under the supervision of a lawyer.
The Law Society said her suspension will start Dec. 1. She has also been ordered to pay the Law Society its costs totaling $47,329.44, which she is allowed to pay in installments of $1,000 per month.
