Real estate agent sentenced after pocketing $1.4 million from strata accounts
A NSW real estate agent has avoided jail after she pocketed more than $1.4 million from strata trust accounts for use on her personal expenses.
Kylee Marie Lane transferred the funds from Parramatta's Prestige Strata accounts to her personal account and used the money for renovations, living costs and medical treatments.
Lane was the licensee in charge of Prestige Strata Management from 2013 to 2019.
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File image: Parramatta, in Sydney's west. Getty Images/iStockphoto
The offences took place between October 2017 and November 2018.
A strata title allows the ownership of part of a property, like a home within a housing complex or an apartment inside a complex.
Residents pay their strata quarterly.
It's the strata manager's job to maintain the shared spaces within the property using those funds.
"Licensees under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 must hold clients' funds in a trust account and those funds cannot be used for any purpose other than for that client," NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Natasha Mann said.
"Penalties under the Act reflect the seriousness and impact this misconduct has on the community and the property sector as a whole, and where a breach is detected NSW Fair Trading will take you to court and hold you accountable."
Lane pleaded guilty to 29 offences of being an accessory to the fraudulent conversion of trust money by misappropriating 31 bank transfers totalling $1.402 million.
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She was sentenced to a two-year and 10-month intensive corrections order as well as 450 hours of community service.
She also surrendered her real estate and strata managing agent license.
Lane was ordered to pay $100,000 to the NSW Fair Trading Property Services Compensation Fund and cover $30,000 in legal costs,
The fund assists people who are out of pocket because an agent has failed to account for money held in trust.
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