A property manager employed by a Sydney commercial property management company has been convicted of seven counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception and sentenced to a maximum of 18 months imprisonment, suspended on him entering into a bond.

 

Paul Francis Charles Stevens worked as a property manager at a Sydney commercial property management company for more than six years and in that time he stole tenants’ rent cheques from his employer and deposited cheques into his own account.

 

Unlawfully having possession of the cheques, he over-wrote the payee name particulars with ‘P Stevens’ and overlayed it with a ‘Not Negotiable’ stamp imprint to disguise the true payee.

 

Later, he presented the forged cheques to cause deposit credit entries to be recorded in a bank account of Paul Stevens Property Services Pty Limited, trading as Paul Stevens Property Services.

 

The District Court in August last year upheld the sentence of an unlicensed real estate agent, Phillip Chau, to 18 months imprisonment, with a non parole period of 12 months, for misappropriating monies from clients’ property trust accounts. Mr Chau was ordered to pay $123,830 to the Property Services Compensation Fund.

 

Earlier in 2011, Fair Trading prosecuted Navid Azzati, the director of a company formerly trading as Raine & Horne Fairfield. Mr Azzati was sentenced to seven months imprisonment, suspended on him entering a bond, for fraudulently misappropriating monies. He was ordered to pay $58,855 to the Property Services Compensation Fund.