A man has lived in a $290,000 house for more than 20 years despite paying only one mortgage payment.
52-year-old Guramrit Hanspal has lived in the house in Long Island, New York for 23 years after he purchased it in 1998.
However, court papers claim that he only paid one mortgage payment of $1,602.37.
According to court papers seen by the New York Post, Hanspal has filed four lawsuits and declared himself bankrupt numerous times so he could avoid getting kicked out of the house, which has been owned by a real estate company and two different banks since 2000.
Chase and Washington Mutual banks as well as real estate group Diamond Ridge have tried to kick him from the East Meadow home since 2000 but he managed to drown them all in legal actions.
Because Hanspal is not the only person living in the house, a rule called ‘automatic stay’ from the US Bankruptcy Code has kicked in.
This means debtors have a temporary reprieve from collection efforts, harassment, and foreclosures.
Court papers claimed that ‘at least three other people’ living at the address have all filed for bankruptcy and received the same ‘automatic stay’ rules.
Diamond Ridge reportedly offered Hanspal $20,000 to leave when they purchased the property from Chase in 2018. The real estate has paid $50,000 in property taxes and spent $150,000 on legal fees.
“As of this writing (we) still have no known end in sight,” member Max Sold said to the Post.
The property is listed on Zillow with a ‘pending status.’ This means that the buyer and seller agreed to a deal but the sale has not closed yet as Hanspal does not want to leave.
Jordan Katz, the attorney working for the real estate group Diamond Ridge told the New York Post: “t’s really a group of people that are more than willing to use the courts and abuse the courts to whatever extent they need to extend their illegal occupancy.
“He’s not legally occupying that property. It’s an outrage.”
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