It is not easy to be a landlord in the United States, especially in some states, where overprotection of tenants makes it worse to be a landlord than a tenant. Sometimes landlords have to lose time and energy to deal with “rogue” tenants.
Now with the epidemic, various federal and state policies have become the umbrella for these “rogue” tenants.
Many of our Chinese compatriots who like to buy homes have been tossed around.
However, this “rogue” tenant in Long Island, New York may be more difficult than others, which are 20 years, still living for free in a house that does not belong to them, and do not worry at all ….
Guramrit Hanspal, 52, bought a house on Long Island, New York, in 1998 for $290,000.
He made one mortgage payment and defaulted on it because it was in foreclosure. Since that time, two banks and a real estate company have owned the property and fought Hanspal in court for years.
During those years, he filed a total of four lawsuits, seven bankruptcy filings and continued to live in the house using the bankruptcy court’s “automatic stay” rule.
Now, in time for COVID-19, the New York Housing Court has once again been slowed down by a backlog of cases, and Hans Parr is still living comfortably in the house, and the real estate company that owns the house has nothing to do with him.
Judging from the listing photos, he has not taken good care of the house during the 23 years he has lived there for free. Photos of the interior show a dirty bathroom. The living room and dining room, with items scattered everywhere. And a basement that looks stuffed with junk.
Washington Mutual and Chase, along with real estate group Diamond Ridge, fought a long, hard legal battle against Hans Parr, but he continued to live in the house using the “automatic stay” rule of U.S. bankruptcy law, which temporarily shields debtors from all collection efforts, harassment and foreclosure.
When Diamond Ridge bought the house from Chase in 2018, it offered Hanspal $20,000 to leave, and according to the company, they have spent $150,000 in legal fees and paid $50,000 in property taxes in the hopes that the longtime tenant would move out.
But Hanspal didn’t accept the offer. Instead, he filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and 2020.
The house was listed on Zillow as “pending,” meaning the seller and buyer agreed to the deal, but the transaction hadn’t closed, in this case because Hanspal didn’t want to leave.
Zillow’s listing price of $399,000 mentions the requirement for a “cash offer,” which is typically used when a home is foreclosed and sold as an “REO” or real estate owned by a bank or other financial institution.
It is unclear how Hans Parr was able to file for bankruptcy multiple times.
The parties are still engaged in an ongoing legal battle in Brooklyn federal court.
Jordan Katz, an attorney for Diamond Ridge, told the New York Post that Hanspell’s litigation history is ‘very long and sordid.
He said he has seen tenants stay in foreclosure before, but ‘nothing compares to the length of this one.
The case is said to have been pulled for more than 20 years for several reasons besides the tenant’s abuse of the legal process, such as the original bank being in debt during the financial crisis, or the deed to the house being given to friends multiple times in Hanspear, and then the federal court having to dismiss the possession of those people one by one, among others.
The lawyer said ‘there always seemed to be a new occupant who popped up at the last minute, but they never showed up in court.
When Hanspeyer bought the house in 1998 for $232,000, the initial interest rate on his adjustable-rate mortgage was 7.375 percent, according to records of the sale at the time. That means he saved himself a possible $440,000 by skipping the bill. Do you think such a man with no credit to speak of could be willing to move out?
Let’s hope we Chinese landlords don’t run into such a “rogue” tenant!
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