A rogue tenant who almost got away with selling his landlord’s house for £400,000 is now jailed with police calling his attempt an "almost unbelievable" crime.

The culprit Andrew Smith, 41,  rented showroom furniture for viewings and set up a bogus estate agency to sell the house online within a week of moving into the property. 

Fortunately he was ‘rumbled’ when his prospective buyer conducted a drain survey before moving into the property and neighbours told him that they believed the house in Cambridge was a landlords’ rental property.

In 2020 Smith told the landlord he was moving into the area for work and rented the three-bedroomed house in Argyle Street, Cambridge.

Within two weeks of moving in, the house was put up for sale online in the bogus agent’s listing and two prospective buyers contacted the so called agency with a sale price being agreed with one of them.

In June 2022, the ‘successful’ buyer visited the house with a surveyor and whilst there the neighbours said they believed the house should not be sold as it was rented and he should immediately contact the letting agent.

Smith’s victim then contacted the police who found that the rogue tenant’s documents handed to the letting agent in 2020 were fraudulent.

Officers eventually hunted down Smith in Bedford and arrested him.

Following his arrest he pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation as well as money laundering and at Brighton Magistrate’s Court on Friday 11th November Smith was jailed for two years and six months.

Det Con Dan Harper said: "This is an almost unbelievable and truly brazen crime, which saw an innocent buyer almost part with more than £400,000 for a property that was never for sale in the first place.