A New York City couple that managed to remove squatters from their $930,000 home are now being sued by the trespassers.
According to the New York Post, Denis Kuryland and Juliya Fulman spent $530,000 renovating their Queens investment property and secured tenants for its rental units when their real estate broker discovered last month that the property’s locks were changed. The police were called and two squatters, Lance Hunt Sr. and Rondie L. Francis, claimed they were living there since January – under New York City law, squatters are given tenants’ rights if they can establish they’ve been in the residence for at least 30 days.
Hunt and Francis could not produce evidence of residency and left the property. However, the property owners were warned by the police that they could not change the locks while the squatters claims were still open. Hunt and Francis returned the next day with what they claimed to be a lease agreement, but Fulman and Kurlyand offered the police their ownership documents and timestamped videos that confirmed the property had been vacant. The squatters were removed by the police and the owners were able to change the locks.
Ten days later, however, the couple and their real estate broker were sued by the squatters. An emergency lockout hearing was held on March 22 in Queens Civil Court – Kuryland accused the squatters of submitting forged evidence to back their claims.
The next scheduled court date is April 5, but Kuryland is questioning whether the justice system is working for property owners.
“Somebody broke into my house, and I’m in court getting sued by them,” he said. “How can we be here? How is this possible? There have to be safety precautions in place.”
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The Justice system serves the guilt and punishes the victims. The justice system is a sham and does NOT protect the people it is suppose to.
Welcome to the New Normal. If people dont push back against the lawlessness we will see more of this. NYC is tainted with blue ideology & lawlessness abounds, all by design.
True
Welcome to the Biden/Obama New World Order! Horrible! Lawlessness and Abuse of Power at it’s Very Best! That said, the old adage applies, “Do as I Say, Not as I Do.” This would never Happen to Your Gov’t/Big Corp. in Full Control. They are Fully Protected!
These laws giving illegal trespassers (Squatters) rights are ludicrous. Allowing random people to take advantage of owners who have acquired their property legally through hard work in my case where I have mortgage, Real Estate taxes and insurance to pay.
Completely against Robbin Hoods method of looking at this situation.
Dystopia-land
I believe the attorney that represents the squatters in the litigation should be counter sued by the property owner’s right along with the squatters. The attorney should have to endure both fiscal and professional consequences when the property owner’s win the court proceedings. The attorney that is representing the squatters is no less responsible for the cost incurred by the property owners to defind their ownership of the property than the squatters.
Nailed it, Larry. Its difficult enough to remove legal, lease-holding tenants that aren’t paying their rent or committing other infractions against the owners and the property. Considering squatters to have any rights at all IS ludicrous! They are stealing plain & simple and as soon as people realize that stealing is NOT a job we may get somewhere.
In Virginia, I had a holdover tenant for months and months. The eviction process took me literally months to go through, including the tenant postponing court dates. I won a judgment for over $17K … only to find out that he is in a homeless shelter now and his only income is social security, which I cannot take from him (understandably). UNREAL! With no Lease and paying no rent, I should be able to get him out in LESS THAN ONE MONTH, legally. Literally NO MORE than ONE MONTH. Had the legal system worked properly, I would have only been out maybe one month’s rent and not over $17K!