Lawyer accused of surreptitiously buying client's property is hired as city attorney
A Montana lawyer has been hired as city attorney despite a pending ethics complaint involving his efforts to collect an attorney fee from a divorce client.
The city of Libby, Montana, hired Kalispell lawyer David G. Tennant on Monday, the Associated Press reports. In an ethics complaint filed last Friday, he is accused of continuing to represent a client after filing a lien on his property, seeking foreclosure, and then surreptitiously buying the property at a sheriff’s auction for a below market price.
Tennant obtained a judgment of about $34,000 in his civil suit for fees against his client.
In his initial October 2015 response to the client’s grievance, Tennant didn’t disclose he had purchased the property through a limited liability company, according to the ethics complaint. He complained that his firm had “incurred an additional $1,400 of fees incurred in dealing with [the client’s] recent illogical emails and this latest complaint.” And he said he doubted the property was worth as much as the $34,000 that “the purchaser” had paid for it at auction.
In reality, the ethics complaint says, the property is worth about $160,000, and his LLC used a promissory note to buy the property that apparently won’t have to be paid until the LLC sells the property.
“Should the lots sell for at or near list price,” the complaint says, Tennant’s “windfall from the lots could amount to over $100,000,” which would amount to an excessive fee.
The property had been awarded to Tennant’s client in the divorce, according to the ethics complaint. Tennant filed an attorney fee lien for $24,000 on the property in February 2012, then represented the client when the client’s ex-wife filed a contempt motion alleging he failed to abide by the terms of the divorce. Tennant sued the client for foreclosure of the fee lien in February 2013.
When the ex-wife filed another post-judgment motion in July 2015, Tennant told the client he could not continue representation without an additional retainer payment, the complaint says. Tennant filed a motion to withdraw as his client’s counsel in July 2015.
Tennant told the Associated Press his former client can still get the property back if he pays attorney fees, past and current property taxes, and unpaid child support to the client’s former wife. “The foreclosed property is on the market,” Tennant told AP. “If the previous owner wants them back, all he needs to do is contact me [and] arrange to pay what he owed.”
