An executive with managing agents Rendall and Rittner pleaded guilty on Monday to stealing £122,000 from his employers’ accounts.
Simon van Houten, 31, from Southend in Essex, used bogus company invoices to scam the company, which manages some of the most prestigious residential buildings in London.
Van Houten, a parish councillor at Paglesham, carried out the fraud over two years before he was rumbled.
He pleaded guilty just before the trial began at the Old Bailey on Monday, and is now awaiting sentencing on July 26.
The case is a reverse for Rendall and Rittner, which has been on a roll this year. It recently won the management of several prestige developments for the Berkeley Group and Redrow’s One Commercial Street, just east of the City. It also manages the upmarket eco resort the Lower Mill Estate in the Cotswolds.
Only last month Rendall and Rittner won a Property Week Resi award for turning round St George’s Wharf, built by the Berkeley Group, where residents received £1 million last September in settlement for over-charging. The complaints occurred when the site was under previous management.
The company, which is FSA regulated, is run by ex-barrister Duncan Rendall, a former chairman of ARMA, and Matt Rittner.
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