The Court of Three Judges is the highest disciplinary body to deal with lawyers’ misconduct.
Mr Lutfi was fined S$5,600 in June 2020 after pleading guilty to two criminal charges of falsely certifying two property-related instruments or mortgages.
He had never met his client, Mohammad Naseeruddin Allamdin, in person before certifying that the other man had signed mortgage forms for 35 Saraca Terrace off Yio Chu Kang Road.
Mr Lutfi also certified that a document on the transfer of the house was correct.
Naseeruddin defaulted on his mortgage repayment shortly after Maybank issued a loan of about S$2.3 million. He had submitted forged income documents when applying for the loan.
His was one of four housing loan cashback scams, involving more than S$11 million, that eventually led to police investigations.
‘AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN’
On Friday, Justices Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash and Steven Chong wrote that Mr Lutfi had “demonstrated the very antithesis” of the values of being a lawyer — honour, integrity, honesty and diligence.
At the time of his offences in 2014, he was the sole director of Lutfi Law Corporation after becoming a lawyer about two decades earlier.
He would rely on his non-legally-trained secretary to prepare the documents for all conveyancing matters and he would sign them without examining their contents, assuming that they had been prepared correctly.
Justice Phang, who delivered the court’s judgment, said: “Such a…
