A pair of alleged squatters have sued the rightful owners of a home they'd been staying in after being thrown out of the $930,000 property.
Denis Kurlyand and Juliya Fulman are a couple who invested $530,000 in renovating the Lakeside Avenue property in Jamaica, Queens, ready to rent out to tenants, The New York Post reported.
Last month, their real-estate broker, Ejona Bardhi, visited the residence for a site check and discovered the locks had been changed as well as seeing a dark figure holding a drill through the window, according to the Daily Mail.
The broker was left alarmed by the discovery so she called the police and waited in her car for officers to arrive. During this time, Bardhi claimed that more men came out of the property and started circling her vehicle which was parked in front of the Lakewood Avenue property.
It was later revealed that inside the property were two alleged squatters named Lance Hunt Jr. and Rondie L. Francis, who claimed to have legally leased the property months earlier.
However, Bardhi disputed their claims and told authorities that she visited the residence a day prior with a housing inspector. The police then asked Hunt Sr. and Francis for proof of residency, which they failed to provide so they left the home without incident.
Once they were out, the broker and the homeowners were going to place new locks on the door, but the officers told them if they did they would get arrested.
The alleged squatters returned to the property a day later, showing what they deemed to be a lease agreement signed by Bardhi. But the couple came prepared and presented their ownership documents and timestamped videos indicating that the house had been vacant.
Police then escorted the men from the property, and the owners changed the locks to the freshly renovated home which now had scratches on walls, worn-out wood floors, and the lingering smell of marijuana.
A few days after being forcefully removed from the Lakeside Avenue property, Bardhi was served with court documents notifying her that the alleged squatters were suing her, Denis and Juliya, and the real estate company handling the site, Top Nest Properties.
"It’s absolutely absurd," Juliya said, per The New York Post. "These people literally broke into my house. It’s not fair to us as homeowners that we are not protected by the city."
"You can’t really even blame them in a way because it’s handed to them on a silver platter," Denis said, adding that the men were "opportunists".
"Something needs to be done because the issue is getting worse. People are taking advantage of these laws, manipulating the laws, and our hands are tied," he said. "What did we do? Nothing. We put up a property for rent, and that’s it, now we’re dealing with a nightmare."
An emergency lockout hearing took place on March 22 in Queens Civil Court, during which the couple’s lawyer, Rizpah Morrow, asked Judge Vijay Kitson for a trial, contending the men had "perpetrated a fraud".
Denis said Hunt Sr. and Francis showed up to court with "forged documents" strung together from public records documents and were allegedly photoshopped.
"They found whatever they could and threw it all together. The lease they presented is ridiculous — signed on Jan. 1 and starting Jan. 1," he said, to which Juliya added: "I don’t know how they had the audacity to show up in court."
The alleged squatters’ lawyer, Dennis Harris, said that his clients had shown him "enough for me to believe they were living there" which included a lease, text messages, and a rental application.
As the next scheduled court date is April 5, the homeowners asked the judge if they could allow tenants to move into the property. But the judge responded that doing so before the matter is solved could complicate things further.
"The court system is not favorable to landlords," Denis said. "It could take years to evict someone who illegally broke into your house? Where’s the law in that? Why work hard to pay rent or mortgages when you can break into somebody’s house every couple of years and have luxury living?
"As in any courtroom, you never know which way it’s gonna go. It’s scary - if the judge decides for whatever reason to rule against us that day, even if we have evidence," he said, adding: "Somebody broke into my house, and I’m in court getting sued by them. How can we be here? How is this possible? There have to be safety precautions in place."
According to the law in New York City, squatters can claim tenant's rights after only thirty days of continuous occupation, whereas in the wider state they must have occupied a property continuously for 10 years before the same protections come into force.
