Most condo theft is quiet. A board treasurer writes association checks to a company they quietly control. A property manager adds a few hundred dollars to a vendor invoice and keeps the difference. The money is gone for months before anyone notices, because the people who could notice trust the person doing it.
Owners pay into the operating and reserve accounts every month and rarely look at where it goes. That gap, between who funds the money and who watches it, is what a thief uses.
the bigger risk is inside the office
Cameras in the lobby and better locks are worth having, but they address the smaller risk. The larger one sits inside the office, with the people who already have access to the accounts. Physical security stops a stranger. It does nothing about a board member with the checkbook.
So treat the finances the way you would treat a front door. Decide who has keys, and make sure more than one person can see who comes and goes.
split up who can touch the money
The single most useful control costs nothing. No one person should be able to both approve a payment and sign the check for it. When the same hand does both, there is nothing between an invented invoice and a real payment. Splitting those two jobs across two people forces a thief to recruit a second, which most will not risk.
The same logic applies to the bank statements. Have them sent, unopened, to a board member who does not sign checks. A treasurer who reconciles their own account is grading their own homework.
read the statements yourself
Board members should look at the monthly financials and actually read them, rather than approving them on trust. A few things are worth a second look every time: checks to a vendor no one recognizes, round-number payments, the same amount paid twice in a month, and totals that jump from one period to the next without an explanation.
Pay special attention around big projects. A roof replacement or a special assessment moves a lot of money at once, through contractors the board may not know well. That is the moment padded invoices and kickbacks are easiest to hide, because the sums are large and the work is hard for a resident to check. Ask for competing bids and match the final payments back to them.
You do not need an accounting degree for this. You need to ask the treasurer to explain anything that looks odd, and to notice when the answer does not make sense.
when to bring in a forensic accountant
Call one when the numbers stop reconciling, a vendor cannot be found at the address on its invoice, or a resident's complaint turns up something the board cannot explain. A forensic accountant pulls the bank records, traces where each payment actually went, works out how much is missing, and writes it up in a form the police or a civil court can use.
The report matters as much as the finding. A hunch that the treasurer stole does not recover money. A documented trail of payments, tied to the person who authorized them, does.
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What it means for your matter
Most engagements are not Enron. But the pattern is the same at every scale: a diverted vendor payment, a related party that shouldn't exist, revenue booked before it was earned, a reserve fund that never quite reconciles. The methods used to expose a multibillion-dollar fraud are the same methods that expose a bookkeeper skimming from a small business or a managing agent taking kickbacks from a co-op.
If something in your financial picture doesn't add up, the earlier a forensic accountant looks, the more of the trail survives. Documents get lost, memories fade, and money moves. The record is easiest to reconstruct while it is still fresh.
Think something's wrong with your numbers?
Talk to a forensic accountant. It's confidential, and there's no obligation.