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A Sydney agent has copped a hefty fine and been sentenced to an intensive correction order after she “breached her obligations as a licensee to the highest degree”.
An NSW Fair Trading prosecution of former real estate agent, Kylee Marie Lane, who misappropriated $1.402 million from trust accounts, has been finalised, with the agent sentenced to a two-year and 10-month intensive corrections order and 450 hours of community service.
In this matter, Lane pleaded guilty to 29 offences of being an accessory to fraudulent conversion of trust money by misappropriating 31 transfers from Parramatta’s Prestige Strata accounts to her personal bank account.
The misappropriated trust account funds were then used by Lane for personal expenses such as renovations, living costs and medical treatments.
Lane, who surrendered her real estate and strata managing agent licence, was also ordered to make a payment of $100,000 to the Property Services Compensation Fund – the maximum allowed – and ordered to pay legal costs in the amount of $30,000.
NSW Fair Trading launched an investigation into Lane, who was the licensee in charge of Prestige Management Pty Ltd between 2013 and 2019, and revealed the offending took place between October 2017 and November 2018.
While sentencing Lane, the magistrate noted that she had “committed a violation and had breached her obligations as a licensee to the highest degree”.
NSW Fair Trading Commissioner, Natasha Mann, said: “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”.
“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,” Mann said.
It’s the latest in a long line of trust account abuses observed across the nation, with the Perth Magistrates Court criminally convicting a former property manager in December of last year for illegally diverting agency trust funds into her own company’s bank account.
In the Perth suburb of West Leederville, a Western Australian woman was permanently barred from working as a settlement agent in June, after she was found to have illegally transferred nearly $30,000 worth of settlement funds to her personal bank accounts and a work credit card.
This trend has also been observed elsewhere, such as in Melbourne’s western suburbs where an agency director from Point Cook and his business were both handed $1,000 fines in August for misuse of trust account funds.
In a case in Brisbane, a Sunnybank agent had his real estate licence permanently disqualified after he was convicted for $1.2 million worth of trust fund misuse in October, in addition to receiving a nine-month term of imprisonment, suspended for two years.
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