A bankrupt property manager found guilty of ill practice has been made to pay thousands in costs and has been struck off his industry's official body.

On June 29 at the end of a five day hearing, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) decided to expel Mark Taylor, the owner of Loughton firm Mark Taylor Chartered Surveyors, and ordered him to pay costs of £20,797.50.

The charges leveled against him ranged from refusing to pay a client an £80 goodwill gesture, ignoring numerous requests for the money and subsequently blaming his inaction on a faulty email system, to dodging an £11,000 sinking fund pay out. 

Following Mr Taylor's bankruptcy on July 27, 2016, trustees of the firm sold the business to Taylor Surveyors Ltd, which is owned and run by his son Elliott.

With the sale all the original business's assets were transferred, aside from the client accounts.

An investigation by a RICS officer found that Mr Taylor's clients had not been informed of the transer, had not offered been offered new management contracts or been told that £970,959.51 of their money was sat in an uninsured account.

However, as Mr Taylor was at that point bankcrupt and the business was in the hands of Trustees, his specific guilt in relation to these charges was not found.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations levelled against him, Mr Taylor did not respond to several requests to attend the June hearing aside to state in an email that he "did not dispute any of the charges, as directly or indirectly, they are all as a result of the bankruptcy."

In its judgement, the RICS panel concluded: "We took the view that Mr Taylor’s failure to carry out his professional work to the requisite standard and to respond appropriately to the complaints that were made by various residents, their representatives, the Ombudsman and RICS amounted to a serious falling short of his professional duties and obligations.

"The panel noted that a number of the factual findings demonstrated a lack of integrity and pre-date Mr Taylor’s bankruptcy by approximately 18 months.

"Mr Taylor’s failings in his personal capacity and as the sole principal of the firm persisted over a significant period of time and the maintaining of client monies in an uninsured client account appears to be ongoing.

"The failings cannot be described as one-off instances as they were repeated on multiple occasions in relation to multiple clients.

"These failings demonstrated a complete disregard for the high standards expected of members and firms."

Mr Taylor did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.