BAD MAX

And his "nice little earner".

by Neil Jenman

Max Brealey is a retired real estate agent. He should be known as Bad Max because he's been very naughty for nearly three decades. Indeed, if real estate rogues were in the Guinness Book of Records, Max and his scam would certainly get an entry.

Bad Max's scam is simple and breathtakingly brazen.

Here's how it works…

Back in the late 1970s, Max had a real estate agency, Brealey Real Estate, in the town of Wallsend, near Newcastle in New South Wales.

Like many agencies, Max Brealey had a rental department. He found tenants, collected rents, deducted his commission and sent the balance of rent monies to the property owners.

Most agents try hard to build 'rent rolls'. The more rent they collect the more commission they make. And, unlike sales departments - where income is erratic - the rental department is a reliable source of income. Agents love rent rolls. They are good earners.

In around 1980, Max Brealey purchased another rent roll from a local accountant. The accountant told him that one of the properties - a house in Stockton, which was divided into three flats - had an owner who had been missing for several years. The owner, whose name was Dennis Dodson, had vanished as far back as the late 1960s, apparently after breaking up with his fiancé.

The accountant told Max that the rent from the Stockton property had to be sent to the state government as "unclaimed money."

After a couple of months, however, Max Brealey told his bookkeeper not to send the money to the government. She was told to write a cheque to "cash" and write the missing landlord's name on the cheque butt.

For three years, between about 1980 and 1983, the bookkeeper continued to make out the cheques for cash, give them to Max and then write "Dennis Dodson" on the cheque butts and make the appropriate entries in the record books. In 1983, the bookkeeper left Brealey Real Estate.

Around 1986, the bookkeeper went back to work for Max. The rent on the Stockton property was still following the same process - a cash cheque with Dennis Dodson recorded on the butts and in the books. The bookkeeper worked at Brealey Real Estate until 1994. In all that time, she claims, Max was pocketing the rent from the Stockton property and covering his tracks in the books. Bad Max.

The bookkeeper moved to the north coast. She didn't see Max for almost ten years until one day, around 2003, he called in on his way back from a Queensland trip. She asked him, "Do you still look after those three flats in Stockton?"

"Oh yes," Max grinned. "It's a nice little earner."

Max later sold his rent roll - when he was in his 70s; it was time to relax - however, he kept one property, the Stockton flats. "I'm not letting anyone else have that," Max said.

Bad Max.

Today, the Stockton flats are managed by Max's daughter, Cheryl Newton from Cheryl Newton First National Real Estate at Salamander Bay. She collects the rent and records everything as going to "Dennis Dodson" the long lost owner. Just like Dad used to do.

According to the former bookkeeper, Max has become so confident about his little scam that he barely bothers to conceal it. The tenants at the property think he's the owner; he's often pottering around the place.

It's now been 29 years since Bad Max started pocketing the rent belonging to Dennis Dodson, the missing owner. One very long scam.

And Max is right.

It sure is "a nice little earner".

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Footnotes:

* The story of Bad Max is scheduled to appear on Channel Seven's Today Tonight at 6.30pm, Monday July 13, 2009.

* On Friday, July 10, 2009, the NSW Office of Fair Trading launched an investigation into the activities of Max Brealey and his daughter, Cheryl Newton. A spokesperson for Fair Trading strongly hinted that the NSW Police would soon be speaking to them both.

* When confronted on Tuesday July 7 2009, by the writer of this article, Max Brealey was asked if he should be addressed as "Dennis" instead of Max. He replied, "Dennis the menace." He then hurried to his car and drove away.

* When asked to comment for this article, Ms Newton refused and, instead, threatened the writer with legal action.