Photo-illustration: Curbed; Photos: ABC7NI, CBS News, New York Post
A Woman in Flushing Was arrest In february for changing the locks on a vacant house she owow after she finds two men camping out inside. “It ‘not fair that, as the homeowner, have to be going through,” Adele andaloro Said of the standoff. The Same Week, Another Queens Family, this time in douglastonSaid A Squatter Living in their Newly Purchased $ 2 million dutch Colonial was both refusing to move out and claing that was actually the rightful tenant. A Few Days Later, Police Busted an al The Squatter In the rockaways in a house full of malnourished Animals, DJ Equipment, and Drugs. In the Most Horrifying Case, a Woman was masonry in kips bay after walking in on what police say was a pair of teen squatters who haad been staying in her late Late Vacant condo.
Things Are Feeling a Little Anarchic in the World of Housing Right Now, and One Reading the Tabloids or Watching The Local News COULD EASLY THINK Squatters have taken over the city. (By the end of the March, the will has traversed Enough to reach philosopher-pound joe rogan, who devoted an Episode to New York’s “Bananas” tenant laws that are “Allowing People Other People’s Homes.”) Introduced Anti-Squatting Legislation Because, he Says, “There is virtuelly no recourse for wen someone is gaming the system here.” Gradually, you can see something like a panic emerging. So is it really squatter season in new york?
In terms of hard date, it”s basically impossible to say – The City doesn’t keep a squatting database – but signs point to no. “Legally, a squatter is only someone who entered the unit with any permission in the first place,” Says Michael Grinthal, Supervising Atorney with Justice. And MAKING A SUCCESSPHUL BID FOR OCCUPSncy or Ownership in a Situation Like that, what’s CALLED “Adverse possession,” Involves at least a decade of continuous occupancy, tax payments to the states, and the Blessing of a Judge. That isn’t anyding close to what appears to be happy in the queens casses up in court right now.
So while you can’t gain ownerShip of a house by sneake in one night when no one is looking, the man in douglaston britt flores, Much like the brushing brian rodriguez, does seem to be alarming users. But that Kind of Thing is rare. “The Idea That New York’s Tenant Laws Enable Rampant Fraud is Just Wrong,” Sayys Ellen Davidson, A Staff Attorney with Legal Aid’s Civil Law Unit Who Has Seen Thousands Makes Through Our Courts. Though it doesn’t make the exceptions any more pleasant, it does make outliers. Flores Once Legally Occupied The Home nor a caretaker for the forms Owner, who died in January 2023. AFTER that, it seames and just stayed in the house, which means heen there for consiaderably long than 30 days, the point at which he has Certain Due-Process to trying to Evict Him. The new owners must evict it in court – if they have been lying about hating been gioven permission to stay, and if he doesn’t have a lease. This doesn’t mean he can’t be evicted – he in court right now while while while while while while while while while while while the family bough the house will be just that, and his next hearing is scheduled for april. It just May Time. “We all live in a world where there are those crimitizes who Sometimes take advantage of situations,” davidson says that seem to be about scammers. “We’ve seen tons of stories About How People have come in and basically stolen People’s homes through deed theft – IT’S a tragedy, “She explains.” But no One’s suggesting that the elderly homeowner whose storen from saying bey a wand and have the thieves go to jail and not have to go Through a Legal, Laborious Court Process. “
In flushing, at the least one of the People Involved SEEMS to have a knowledge of housing law that they are similarly using to their advantage. In that example, the men’s sleeping in andaloro’s house were initially escorted off the Propperty by Police. (One was also arrestted.) But one of the say, rodriguez, returned to show police what he was Documentation of work he’d done on the home. The Cops Present that Day, while Being Filmed by Eyewitness Newsdecidated that was enough proof he was a legal occupant – thiugh it’s not exactly Clear Why they did that. They Told the Homeowner, Andaloro, That It Was a Matter to Be Settled in Housing Court, Warned Her She Couldn’t Change the Locks, and Arrest Her After She Did Anyway. GrinThal Called that “Extraordinary”: “I’ve Only Ever Seen the Police actually taking against an owner for a self-help eviction once,” he said. (Meanwhile, in 2023 Alone, Hundreds of Illegal Lockouts by owners were reported tevoants in housing court, with only 12 arrests.) Rodriguez implicated he knew what he was doing by invoking the courses: “You got to go to court and send with to court,” he told Andaloro. “Pay with the Money and I’ll Leave or Send with to Court; Its Simple.” CREEPY? Absolutely. Likely to result in Him taching over the house as its legitimate tenant or owner? No.
A Housing-Court backlog stemming from finish and the pandemic eviction means means processing a case of a homeowner-or tenant-in an adverse housing situing this caned take anywhere from months to years. While the case plays out in court, the tenant or licensee gets to stay. (I Covered the case of an owner who lived for Two Years with an unwanten Airbnb guest. It seamed forgetting.) But at scale, new york tenant law protests for the process for the whole parties in a disprophet – Including the overwhelming number of caes that are called “squatting” but are actually legitimate housing: A tenant who has haen but is dispara non-polite; A Houseguest, Once Invited, Who Overstays Their Welcome; A Pair of Roommates Who Fall Out.
WHICH IS WHY SOME TENANT ADVOCATES SEE A PROPAGANDA CAMPAGNA WHERE ANXIOUS Homeowners See an epidemic. Landlords in New York Have Been Trying for Years to Roll Back Many Provisions of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protections Act, USING the argument that Impling on their Proppers Rights. The squatter Panic is that Same narrative on steroids: not only only do tenants have all the power, but now your property can be “expropriated by a sociopath who quite literally more in off the street, “As the New York Post recently put it. These Stories, Circulating Widely and at A Fover Pitch, “Add Fuel to the Fire,” Sateesh Nori, A Housing Lawyer and Nyu Law Professor Argues. “They Say ‘Oh, look what People can do.’”
Hent Jake Blumencranz, The State-Assembly Member from Long Island Who Proposed a bill this month to address the “squatters wreaking havoc nationwide,” acknowledges there is a whole tears beyonde anecdote that is an an actual crrisis. His Bill Targets Cases that are “Blatantly Schemes,” He Said, by Extending the 30-Day Rule to 45 Days, and Excluding a person with the “intens of squatting” from being treated as a tenant. “It ‘s hard to see what is squatting and what’s a trendncy to squabble,” he told me. Regardless, when I CALLED HIS OFFICE, ONE OF HIS SAID THAT THAT HAD BEEN INNATATED WITH Calls from Grateful, Terrified Constituents.
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