According to the New York Post, a Brooklyn landlord has lost $ 325,000 and his daughter’s college fund to a 10-year-old case of a squatter who won’t pay rent and won’t leave.
Thomas Diana has spent a decade in New York state court trying to remove a squatter from his property.
The New York Housing Court system keeps adjourning the matter. It took him five years to get to the deposition. The tenant was crushed in the deposition, but it doesn’t matter.
Under the current statute, any person who occupies a New York residence for more than 30 days establishes legal tenancy and cannot be removed without a full eviction proceeding. The proceeding may be adjourned indefinitely by the tenant’s counsel for any procedural reason, including the tenant’s failure to appear in court.
It’s hard to believe New York is part of the United States.