Sydney tradesman Tony Halloun has been sentenced to at least 17 years in prison for the murder of one of his clients at her waterfront property.

After a trial that ran for almost two months, Halloun, 36, was found guilty in September of murdering 65-year-old Shahnaz Qidwai.

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The trial heard Halloun bashed the grandmother to death in her Henley home in Sydney’s Lower North Shore on January 15, 2012.

Mrs Qidwai’s body was found on a bedroom floor by one of her four adult children.

Prosecutor Giles Tabuteau told the jury Halloun, whose company was called Totalcrete, was renovating the driveway of the home.

Mr Tabuteau said Mrs Qidwai usually did office work for her husband Khalid at his medical practice at Croydon, but she had decided to stay home that day.

The jury heard the victim died from blunt-force injuries to her head, chest, and ribs.

The crown case was that after bashing the woman, Halloun took around $3,000 cash from the house to help pay his debts.