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August 31, 2008
Need advice on evicting squatter
My 93 yr old grandmother lives with her daughter in an apt and owns a house nearby. The daughter keeps her cats there but nobody is currently living in the property. Recently she asked some homeless man to go to the house to feed the cats every day. He decided to move his girlfriend and dog and property into the house and refuses now to leave and threatened her and said she should try to spend the time and money to get him evicted through housing court. I called the police and asked them to evict the man since he has no lease, no rent receipt, no mail over thirty days old, no witness testimony and even no keys!!! The police refuse to act however. Amazingly they claim that they (the police) know that he is there over thirty days because "they saw him in front of the house some time ago" I said he was visiting over a month ago perhaps to feed cats but only two weeks earlier seems to have moved in. I told the police also that my mother is not the owner of the property and no longer lives there and that my grandmother never who is sole owner never authorized this man to even go into the property. They claim she is the custodian of the property however and let this guy in and he is there over thirty days and they can do nothing. I begged them to talk to the neighbors who would confirm that he is not there that long and I said that I myself was at the house three weeks before and he was not there. The officer refused to talk to the neighbors and said "maybe he was there and left and returned". Now it is labor day and soon IT WILL be over thirty days due to police inaction. Any advice will be very welcome. Who do you appeal to when the police will not help you with someone breaking the law? They even said they will arrest me for illegal eviction if I lock the guy out!!!!!
Comments
The issue, as I understand the law, is that the building was otherwise unoccupied. Once someone settles into an unoccupied building they become a squatter and squatters have to be evicted by court order. Cops don't have the authority to throw them out without due process.
In the meantime, contact your community board and see if they can build a fire under the precinct captain to have the guy arrested for trespassing. It might work.
Posted by: Steve at August 31, 2008 12:17 PM
I'm guessing that there is a little more to this story than meets the eye. However, if you don't want to go the whole route of getting a lawyer (which is the intelligent way to handle this) here's what I would do.
Cops hate to get involved in evictions one way or the other. There are always at least two sides to the story and it is a real pain figuring it all out. That being said, you have a right to protect your property. If you go there and the house is open and empty, you have the right to protect your house, so you could change the locks. A lot of homeless people are going to take the path of least resistance, so if they come back and everything is buttoned up nice and tight, there is a real possibility that they will just move on. If they break back in, you could be pro-active and call the cops for a break in. Cops tend to give credence to the person who calls first, unless you are a complete nut job. It's going to be a much tougher sale however if the guy has a whole house of furniture.
In a worse case scenario, the homeless guy returns, calls the cops, they track you down, you admit to changing the locks, and they insist that you let the person back in and you get a summons to appear in court. If you refuse to let them in, you will be arrested. But before that happens, the homeless guy is going to have to show the cops proof that they live there and have done so for over 30 days. If they can't and the cops insist on going ahead, you need to insist that they call their sergeant.
It's a more drastic approach and could result in your getting a summons, but it will definately bring things to a boil a lot sooner than the whole housing court route.
If on the other hand they have been there longer than you are saying, or your mother has been living there and invited them in, things are a whole lot more complicated and in that case you have to go through court. I wouldn't change the locks if they have a house full of furniture. The cops will not be sympathetic. If they are sleeping on the floor and the place is obviously a crash pad, the cops are going to be more understanding. They are not going to be understanding at all if the individuals appear to be legitimate tenants, with phone service, payed utility bills, etc.
The alternative is to go to the local precinct and speak with the desk officer, making sure that you get his name and badge number. This has to be a ranking officer, Sergeant, Lieutenant, or Captain. Honestly, they probably are going to just refer you to court, but you will be on record as having asked for an eviction before the 30 days, which will help your court case if it comes to that.
The courts USUALLY consider the case from the time it is brought to their attention. It's sort of like child support. I can drag out a case for years, but when the case is settled, I'm going to owe back pay. Same thing with the tenants, they can't drag it out for over thirty days and then use that as justification.
Posted by: Bond at August 31, 2008 12:30 PM
Sorry to hear your story what a bloody mess. I would advice considering Bond's response above but I personally will want to resolve this really quickly and ASAP by making him an "OFFER" he can't refuse. I know its hard but sometimes the law is way too slow and unfair especially here in our socialist republic of New York.
Make some calls and think hard... you will be alright. Good Luck
Posted by: pierre de taille at August 31, 2008 4:42 PM
Does he still have the cats? Is there some kind of law that says they are your "property" and maybe get him on that? In any case, I would make sure they are safe before you do anything to piss him off. Good luck!
Posted by: rh at August 31, 2008 5:05 PM
I'm not sure how the details were worked out, but a friend of mine hired two "off duty" NYC cops to negotiate his own personal squatter to leave. I think they deleivered the guy $400 and while he was out getting high they had a rubish removeal truck come and put his "belongings into staorage".
Posted by: IMBY at August 31, 2008 5:31 PM
Wow, this is a shocking story. I really don't have any advice for you that has not already been mentioned by other posters, but this post was so amazing that I had to comment. I just can't believe that someone can move into your house uninvited and it's this difficult to get him to leave?!!? I do think you can make him an "offer" as another poster suggested, but I can imagine that it will eat at your pride (as it would for me).
Good luck. Post back and let us know how it goes.
Posted by: seahag21 at August 31, 2008 9:19 PM
if this happen to me, i would raid my own place and put them on notice. just matter of street justice. since the government doesn't want to get involved right away.
by government i mean cops.
Posted by: armchairwarrior at August 31, 2008 9:41 PM
Anyone ever seen the movie, "Pacific Heights"?
Posted by: Steve at August 31, 2008 10:33 PM
OK - here is the update. I spoke to some officers in New York City and told them the story about the house in Brooklyn and asked their advice . They all said that the reason the officers on the scene would not throw him out was because they don't want to take responsibility and latter get sued and that I should throw his stuff in the street and lock the door and then it would be up to him to prove he belongs there . They even implied that this is what they would do and that I was being kind of a fool for letting myself get pushed around by a homeless guy in my own home like this. I was seriously considering this course of action until I read the rent laws on Google last night and saw the penalty for illegal eviction. Anyhow I decided maybe I would have better luck today calling 911 again and perhaps a different set of cops would see things my way. Sure enough a more understanding pair showed up. Having practice now I told my story more lucidly and seemed to be winning them over. They spoke with the homeless guy and he said he had some lawyers letter proving he lived there (not on him however) and that he tape recorded my mother saying she was renting him the aptment but still could not produce keys, lease, receipt of payment or mail or nada! The cops then asked my why I did not call right after he moved in. I told them I live in NYC and only found out about it two weeks after the fact. They then called their supervisor who came down to the property and reviewed the facts with me and the squatter. At first he said he that he did not know who to believe because the squatter might have been there thirty days and later prove it and I could be lying. I told him that I did not understand a law which gave the benefit of the doubt to a person with no documentation that he belonged in a property over the rights of a property owner. The chief then suggested that I lock him out but I protested that that might subject me to illegal eviction penalties and that I felt it was their duty to get him out. Anyhow, after a back and forth for almost an hour the cops finally convinced the guy to leave or they might have to arrest him. All I know from the whole thing is that nobody seems to know what the law is in this kind of situation and there really ought to be some clearer protocols for the police to deal with such things so that neither tenants or landlords are hurt. I got lucky and talked my way to victory essentially. Now I gotta hope the bum won't come back and throw a Malatov coctail through my window in the middle of the night in revenge.
Posted by: streaker at August 31, 2008 11:02 PM
Hopefully, you'll able to drink whatever comprises a Malatov coctail. Be very worried if it's a Molotov cocktail that's tossed.
Posted by: kidbklyn at September 1, 2008 5:30 PM
Now that you've got the squatter out, you've got to move one of your own family members back in. If that's not immediately feasible, you might even consider getting a security system (CCTV) which you could monitor in case the guy decides to move back in or cause damage to the house.
Posted by: Minmin at September 2, 2008 3:27 PM
ok. here's the answer why the cops din't help. In the city of NY there is a law called the squatters rights, yes they have rights. If you violate the rights of a freeloader i.e evicting without a court order, you along with the cops are getting sued by the p,s for violating his/her rights. Thank the court system!!!!!
Posted by: jarhead155 at September 3, 2008 3:27 AM
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