Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A Thames immigration adviser has still not returned a client's passport more than a year after they asked for it back.
John Lawlor also made mistakes that led to clients becoming illegal overstayers, without telling them about their unlawful status.
He was a director of Lawlor & Associates in 2019, when he was hired to apply for residency on behalf of a Cambodian couple. He filed a skilled migrant resident visa application for the client, who was already living in New Zealand, in September 2019. It was approved in July 2021.
Lawlor also agreed to file a partnership work visa application in March 2020, and asked for documents that would be needed.
However, in April 2022, the client withdrew his instructions for his partner's visa. He asked Lawlor to return his original documents, and refund the $3495 fee he had paid. The adviser replied on the same day that he would email him after Easter.
Over the next year, the man contacted Lawlor more than 12 times asking for the return of the original documents and money. He told Lawlor the documents were important to him and that he needed them and the money urgently. In reply, Lawlor repeatedly told the man he would get back to him, and return the money and documents, but failed to do so.
The Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal last week upheld a complaint against Lawlor, ruling he had acted against the industry's code of conduct.
It said the man (whose identity is suppressed) last contacted Lawlor in November 2022.
"The complainant expressed himself to be 'really sick of any of these'. He asked him just to do it, there being no need to call him," the tribunal's decision said.
The man still had not received the documents or the refund as of mid-June, more than a year after he initially asked for them. The tribunal noted it was unclear exactly what the documents were, but said they almost certainly included the partner's passport.
Lawlor did not respond to RNZ's requests for comment. He also did not reply to the tribunal's invitation to respond to the complaint, and continued to say he would refund the money.
"Mr Lawlor's conduct in deliberately misleading the complainant over such an extended period is disgraceful. He was neither honest nor professional and he failed to conduct himself in a timely manner," the decision said.
It said the full fee should have been refunded, as there was no evidence Lawlor had done any work on the application.
The tribunal is yet to decide on any sanctions, but said in general the focus of professional disciplinary proceedings was not punishment, but the protection of the public.
Lawlor has appeared before tribunal before
However, this is not the first time the immigration adviser has appeared before the tribunal - he has been censured twice and ordered to pay a total of $7000, after two earlier complaints against him were upheld.
A decision from March outlined a case involving an Indian woman who had been in New Zealand since 2015. She hired Lawlor in 2019 to help her get a work visa and residence, and faced similar delays, excuses, and unanswered calls.
The adviser made a mistake which led to an application being returned by Immigration NZ, and then failed to file follow up documents to the qualifications authority. His client eventually found out months later when she rang NZQA herself.
"This came as a shock. They do not understand how an adviser can lie to a client. He was misleading and dishonest," the decision said.
"They lost three years of their lives, from 2019 to 2022. It caused stress, depression, anxiety, financial pressure and uncertainty. The complainant lost her job and had to find another one, which caused panic attacks and sleepless nights.
"Her partner had to refile his visa and could not work for three months which hugely impacted them financially. The complainant could not travel to India for her father's funeral."
Fed up, the woman filed documents herself and was granted a resident visa in 2022. Lawlor had agreed to a partial refund in December 2021, but this was not paid until six months later. His lawyer argued this was because of the collapse of his business after Covid-related border closures, but the tribunal found this was not justified.
"Mr Lawlor's explanation means that he used the complainant's money for other business purposes. It was not his money to use until he had completed the work for which the money was taken in advance and had invoiced her. He did neither."
Lawlor said he had been unwell and confused at the time, but the tribunal found he had deliberately misled the client.
"He pretended an assessment application had been made when it had not. He made up reasons for what he claimed were NZQA's delays. This behaviour is not explained by confusion.
"There is further evidence of Mr Lawlor's deceit. He was evasive about giving the complainant NZQA's application number, so she could make her own enquiries (as in fact she did eventually without the number). That is evidence of his intention to mislead her, not of any muddled thinking due to ill-health."
The woman was eventually refunded $2730 of the $6500 fee she paid, in May last year.
Lawlor fails to tell family they were in NZ illegally
That was about the same time the tribunal issued its first finding against Lawlor, from a client who lived in New Zealand and was trying to get a work-to-residence visa for her brother-in-law (a chef), and his wife and children. The adviser had worked for the family since 2014.
He applied for the visa on their behalf in April 2016, but the chef's qualifications were not deemed sufficient and the application was declined. The family was issued with a work visa, and then an interim visa while they continued to look at options to stay, but in 2019, Lawlor did not respond to Immigration NZ's concerns about a second residence application.
Lawlor was advised in August 2019 the application had failed, and the family's interim visa would expire the following month. If they remained, they would be overstayers and liable for deportation. The tribunal found Lawlor did not tell the family they had become unlawful until February of the next year, and even then, did not explain the consequences of their illegal status.
The same decision also outlined his lack of diligence when it came to the woman's father's visa. Lawlor applied for a parent/grandparent visitor visa in January 2019, despite the man not being eligible for it because he was already in New Zealand. He changed that to a general visitor visa in March, without telling the family. The man became an overstayer in November, after a second general visa application failed in August because he had been on a visitor visa for too long.
Lawlor was asked to file a request for a discretionary visa in December. He failed to do that until August of the next year.
The tribunal said Lawlor accepted he had breached personal and professional standards.
"He says he takes his professional obligations very seriously and aims to provide an outstanding service to his clients. He accepts not meeting his own standards," it said.
"He has learned from the experience. These were the only matters in which he 'dropped the ball'. He is most upset by his own inadequate conduct and appreciates how frustrating and concerning this was for the complainant and her family."
According to the tribunal's latest decision, Lawlor's licence expired in January this year and he withdrew his renewal application in March, choosing to retire instead.
He said he had found the experiences of the past few years during the pandemic and the circumstances in the profession too stressful.