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A tenant who tried to promote his rented home with out the owner’s data has been jailed for 2 and a half years.
Lower than two weeks after receiving the keys to the three-bedroom home in Argyle Avenue, Cambridge (pictured) in February 2020, the property appeared on the market on-line through a pretend property agent firm. Andrew Smith (inset), 41, was solely rumbled when a potential purchaser performed a drain survey.
In June 2022, when the unwitting sufferer visited the property with a drain surveyor, neighbours informed him that they thought the home was tenanted and never on the market and suggested him to contact the letting agent.
Police found that many paperwork Smith had supplied to the letting agent have been fraudulent. He had additionally made funds to a furnishings rental firm, which provides furnishings for present properties, shortly after shifting in.
Fraud admitted
Smith, of Gardeners Shut, Flitwick, admitted fraud by false illustration and coming into into cash laundering, at Brighton Magistrates’ Courtroom.
Detective constable Dan Harper says: “That is an virtually unbelievable and actually brazen crime, which noticed an harmless purchaser virtually half with greater than £400,000 for a property that was by no means on the market within the first place.
“The investigation has been lengthy and detailed, and we now have labored tirelessly to verify justice has been served.”
This isn’t the primary time {that a} crime like this has made headlines; final 12 months, a person was arrested after vicar Mike Corridor found his Luton house had been bought with out his data. Corridor obtained a name from his neighbours to say somebody was staying on the home.
A BBC investigation discovered his identification had been stolen and used to promote the home and financial institution the proceeds.
Learn extra about property hijackings.
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