This Friday, while being at the birthday party of one of my best friends in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to put closure to one of the most difficult cases that I had in my legal career. My friend was turning 49 years old and since 49 is the new 48, or so my friend jokes, he decided to throw a party at his new flat in the heart of Barcelona. After his speech and blowing the candles, one of the guests whispered to my ear:

“This is all thanks to you”

I looked at her with surprise but then instantly knew what she was referring to.

“Thanks, Elena. Actually, it was one of the toughest moments of my life so I appreciate the comment.”

“Without you they would have lost all their money, Antonio” Continued Elena.

Actually, she was not entirely correct and the result could have been much different if persistence, strategy and luck would have not paid their part.

Twelve months ago I was advising my friend and his wife on the purchase of a property in Barcelona. Not the one where the party was taking place this week but a different one in the Poble Nou district. The thing is that I did not like the transaction straight away. A property in an area affected by planning entries and that had previously been a restaurant. After doing my legal due diligence and engaging an architect, my opinion was still the same: this property was a no-no. It would never have a proper habitation licence and therefore my friends would not be able to get a mortgage. However, my friend believed in the potential of the property. He did not trust the seller, a peculiar real estate agent/developer with a tremendous temper. The said seller was switching moods like people change socks and it was very difficult to deal with him.

I had no doubts about the property and the conditions. It was a dangerous deal where my friend´s large deposit would remain unprotected for many months.

I told my friend my opinion and recommended him to walk away but my friend, a clever businessman, fell in love with the property and decided to go ahead.

Since he had proved in the past that he was a prudent successful entrepreneur, I allowed him to continue. Now, in hindsight, this was my first mistake. As a lawyer we have an obligation to advise, to point out the risks and once we have done it, the client can decide whether he wants to proceed or not. In fact, lawyers should not impose their criteria and block a transaction when the client, who has been properly informed, does not want to proceed. So far, so good. However, there are certain cases where instinct shouts “danger” at you with all its heart. This was one of those cases. Call it premonition, legal instinct, mileage or whatever way you want to describe it, but I knew that the sale was going to end up badly and I did not stop my friend from putting all his money as a deposit on a property that although, had incredible potential and would immediately rise in value, could ruin him and his wife.

And then it happened. Without entering into the core of the problem, many complicated months followed where I spent hours trying to get the property legally completed and when this was not an option, trying to get my friend´s money back. This was my second mistake: get too involved.

Nothing stops a lawyer from representing a friend in a property transaction, commercial agreement or Court case but it is true that this could become a conflict of interest. A friend is not a normal client. A friend is a client who will whatsapp you on a Sunday morning or that you will meet for a drink for a catch up. If he is in financial dire straits, you will feel his pain and, of course, you will feel the guilt of not having imposed your criteria onto him when you felt that the property was a bad idea. This is when I realised that it was becoming too personal. I was too angry with the seller and this was affecting my work and how I was handling the case. It was time to delegate this matter to another lawyer who was not friends with the client. I therefore contacted one of my collaborators who handled the communications with the seller from a fresh perspective. Interestingly, he also encountered a man with swing moods and, very often, aggressive but at least he was not compromised like I was. In the end, with the aid of my colleague and me guiding behind the curtains, we managed to reach an agreement and recover every single euro that my friend had pay, and believe me, it was a lot of money.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of months later my friends contacted me again because they had found another property. I nearly fell from my chair when I received their call. Did I want to go through the same process again? Would it not be better to pass it to another lawyer? I guess I should have declined it and said no but there was a part of me that fell a duty of care towards them. They nearly got hoaxed once and me not listening to my instinct could have contributed to a great loss. However, I still felt a moral and professional obligation to walk them through the process of buying a property in Spain until they got it right.

This could have been my third mistake but I promised myself that if I saw the slightest minor problem with the property or documentation, I would stop the transaction straight away. Luckily, this time everything was in order and my friend bought a lovely apartment where he was now hosting his 49th birthday party.

So yes, in a way, it was thanks to me that we were all there celebrating in a beautiful apartment, but I also had to be humble and recognise my mistakes. I had learnt a very valuable lesson. Sometimes it is a good idea to advise a friend and sometime it is not. The key is to have the wisdom and insight to differentiate one from the other. And if in the end you realise that you are no longer impartial, that your well intended advice is compromised, then you should pass the case to another lawyer and step back. It is better to retract and reshuffle your strategy than to persist out of ego and blindness. In the end, it is your friend´s money which is at risk. His safety and wellbeing should be above any other matter.