Squatter laws improve, but Long Islanders still face financial, emotional hurdles

It's been two years since squatters left the Jericho home Bobby Chawla and his family bought for his pregnant sister and her husband.

Multiple settlement offers have fallen through, as Chawla attempts to collect some of the $150,000 in legal fees he spent, as well as financial restitution for occupancy of their house for two years.

"Absolutely nothing has progressed," said Chawla, 34, of Lawrence, as the former occupants continue delaying.

For years, New York law stated that a homeowner couldn't forcefully remove a tenant. Only a sheriff with a court order could do that. And an angry landlord trying to remove a tenant could be arrested. So courts had to get involved, kicking off a lengthy and pricey process — all while the squatter lived for free.

While a new state law excludes true squatters from tenant protections, homeowners like Chawla are still stuck going through a slow court process to recoup their losses long after they get their properties back.

"The nerve that it takes to try to pull this scam off, it's pretty brazen," said Anthony W. Cummings, a commercial litigation attorney who has handled landlord-tenant cases for his firm, Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman LLP in Hauppauge. "It is a person cut from a different cloth who will engage in this."

NY's squatter laws improve, but it's still an ordeal

It often takes as long as a year for the sheriff to remove squatters, Cummings said. "They largely end with evictions because of the stubbornness of those occupants."

In Suffolk County, the sheriff typically presides over at least 1,200 evictions annually, according to data the office provided to Newsday.

A COVID-19 eviction moratorium on most evictions from March 7, 2020, until Jan. 15, 2022, affected those numbers, but in 2023 and 2024 they jumped up to 1,322 and 1,543, respectively. It's unclear how many of those evictions were due to true squatters — those who take possession of a home without permission of the owner, versus holdover tenants who stopped paying rent and refuse to leave.

Nassau County sheriff didn't provide eviction figures by the Newsday publication deadline.

Cummings noted that true squatters should now have a harder time pulling their schemes on unsuspecting homeowners by illegally entering a home, staying 30 days and getting tenant protections.

As part of the FY 2025 budget for New York, an agreement reinforced existing state law and specifically excluded squatters from tenant protections. The reinforced law should mean that police can remove squatters for lack of a lease without having to go through the courts, Cummings said.

Chawla doesn't have faith in the change to state law because homeowners like him still have to go through a lengthy process to evict holdover tenants.

Once a homeowner brings a squatter or holdover tenant to court, there are many ways to stall, including filing for bankruptcy, bringing an order to show cause, Cummings said.

Packed court dockets also mean cases take a while to appear before a judge, and court dates routinely get adjourned and rescheduled.

While at the end of a trial there is usually an award of monetary damages for unpaid rent and property damage, it doesn't always make its way to the aggrieved party.

"The collectability of that judgment is another thing," Cummings said. "They [squatters] probably don't have assets, or even a bank account in some cases."

Eviction was just the beginning

Many situations, the landlord is being completely taken advantage of. It's not fair, it's not like mortgages get put on hold and bills get put on hold.

— Bobby Chawla

Chawla and his family bought the four-bedroom, two-bathroom Jericho home at a bank auction for $762,000 in February 2022 sight-unseen and knowing it was occupied.

The occupants had bought the house in 1990, but stopped paying the mortgage, had the bank foreclose on them twice and delayed eviction for years by filing numerous bankruptcy applications, court records show.

Of course, Chawla didn't know all the details when, shortly after he purchased the house, he approached the people living in it.

He was prepared to offer them money so they would leave, to which they did agree — signing a surrender agreement that turned out held no weight in court.

Finally, the couple evicted in January 2024 and the Chawla family spent between $50,000 and $75,000 to get the house in livable shape. There was trash everywhere and "it was disgusting," Chawla said. They renovated the kitchen, and finally, his sister and her husband, then with a newborn baby, moved into the house in summer 2024.

"The house has been great, we've already made a ton of memories there," Chawla said. "That has been a blessing."

But when he and his attorney found public records that showed the squatters bought a house in Florida in 2024 and, later another one in 2025, Chawla decided to sue to get some of his money back.

"I wouldn't have filed the lawsuit if I didn't find out he bought a house with cash," he said. "He took full-blown advantage of my family and so I had to come after him."

He's frustrated that the judges allow delaying tactics to keep cases in court for years.

"I understand if a landlord is wrong, every case needs to be judged individually," he said. "But many situations, the landlord is being completely taken advantage of. It's not fair, it's not like mortgages get put on hold and bills get put on hold."

'It'll cost me a fortune to renovate'

Diane Poulos knows about being taken advantage of all too well.

She has been renting out the upstairs apartment in her Selden house since 2014 with little issue until her most recent tenants, who moved in at the beginning of 2020, right as the world was shutting down amid the pandemic.

The tenants, a woman and her adult son, stopped paying rent in May.

Poulos, a school nurse, believes the son was collecting disability benefits, and when that ran out, so did the rent.

Poulos took the tenants to court and the judge told them to leave by Oct. 15.

They are still in the unit, were $8,750 in arrears as of October and had caused what Poulos estimated to be $20,000 in damage to the apartment.

She shared a video of every room covered in trash and clutter, including the kitchen, piled high with debris.

So here I've had a house for 34 years that I'm actually going to lose because these people refuse to pay and have destroyed it.

— Diane Poulos

"It's a major fire hazard; you can't get to anything," including the refrigerator that is leaking and has damaged the first-floor ceiling, she said.

"It's such a slow process and, in the meantime, it's damaging my home," she said. "It'll cost me a fortune to renovate."

Poulos is awaiting a new court date to see the judge again and get action on the removal. She isn't holding out hope that she'll be reimbursed a penny.

She does what Cummings said to never do: rely on the rent to pay her mortgage.

"So here I've had a house for 34 years that I'm actually going to lose because these people refuse to pay and have destroyed it," she said. "I'm begging and borrowing from whoever I can at the end of the day."

Advice for homeowners

Before homeowners rent a spare unit, they should ask themselves "Is it worth it to me in the State of New York?" Cummings said.

It's a mistake to be financially dependent on your rental unit, he said, because it's more risky than people recognize and plan for.

Even with all stellar tenants who pay their rent on time, costly repairs to appliances, HVAC or the roof shouldn't be enough to put a homeowner in a hole.

"You need to be ready for variances," Cummings said. "If your finances are so tight that your fridge goes and you need to come up with $2,000 and it's tight, it's not a good idea."

Thomas Weiss, an attorney who has worked on landlord tenant disputes for almost three decades, said whether it's the occasional squatter or holdover tenant that a landlord is trying to remove, slow and understaffed court systems exacerbate the situation.

Fortunately, Long Island courts aren't nearly as bad as New York City courts, said Weiss, who works for Vishnick McGovern Milizio LLP, with offices in Lake Success, Manhattan and Oakhurst, New Jersey. He represents clients in New York City and Long Island courts, and said he has seen more holdover tenants after the pandemic.

He doesn't believe it's due to the housing market.

"I think that anybody who wanted to find a place to rent, there's no shortage there," he said.

They know the court system, they know they can get adjournments. They can continue to play the courts system.

— Thomas Weiss, an attorney who has worked on landlord tenant disputes

He does attribute more holdover tenants, at least in part, to the backlog of cases — which tenants know all about.

It sometimes takes months to get a court date, and "there's people I'd call 'professional tenants,' " he said.

"They know the court system, they know they can get adjournments. They can continue to play the courts system."

By the time a landlord is able to get a judgment of possession and eviction, it could be as long as

12 months on Long Island

and 12 to 18 months in New York City.

By the time a landlord is able to get a judgment of possession and eviction, it could be as long as 12 months on Long Island, and 12 to 18 months in New York City.

Like Cummings, he pointed to the change in tenant protections.

"What is supposed to happen is you could seek police intervention without ever having to go to court," he said. "You're not supposed to see these cases go to court at all."

But he does. He was recently retained by a New York City landlord "who has a true squatter by every sense of the word."

Weiss told the landlord to go to the police precinct with his deed, tell them the person has no right to enter the property and ask them to remove them.

But police refused to act, forcing the landlord to go to court. Weiss believes it's likely due to police being uneducated on the changes in squatter laws.

He still makes the same recommendation to landlords with squatters — show your deed and ask police for help. If need be, pull up the news reports about the change in law.

As for a holdover tenant, he advises landlords to serve the proper pre-eviction forms immediately because it takes time once you serve.

"Any time wasted is simply time lost."