NYC landlord pleads for help as ‘9-year-squatter’ continues to drain him dry in court saga: ‘Twilight Zone’

NYC landlord pleads for help as '9-year-squatter' continues to drain him dry in court saga: 'Twilight Zone'

Thomas Diana says the dispute has drained his daughter's college fund and cost up to $325,000 in unpaid rent

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Brooklyn landlord says ‘9-year-squatter’ wreaking havoc on his life

Fox News Digital spoke to Tom Diana about a legal battle with a tenant that has gone on for nearly a decade that has drained his finances and negatively affected his personal life.

EXCLUSIVE: NEW YORK CITY — A Brooklyn landlord says he has been trapped in a nearly decade-long legal nightmare that has cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and legal fees, while New York courts repeatedly delay resolution as his tenant continues living in the apartment without making direct rent payments to the landlord.

Thomas Diana, who owns a small eight-unit building in Park Slope, told Fox News Digital he has spent the last nine years trying to remove a woman who originally moved into one of his apartments as a live-in companion for an elderly, disabled tenant.

Court records show the woman moved into the apartment in 2014 after responding to a Craigslist advertisement seeking a live-in companion for the tenant, who later died in 2016.

What followed was nearly a decade of litigation spanning multiple courts and proceedings. After the elderly tenant's death, disputes arose over the woman's tenancy status, rent obligations and whether the apartment remained subject to New York rent-stabilization laws as Diana sought unpaid rent and possession of the apartment.

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Brooklyn landlord Tom Diana told Fox News Digital that a legal battle with a "9-year squatter" has drained his finances and negatively affected his personal life. (Fox News Digital/Andrew Mark Miller)

"This has gone on for nine years. Nothing about this is justice," Diana told Fox News Digital. "Every time the case gets close to resolution, there’s another delay, another lawyer change, another new story."

Diana says the tenant has changed lawyers at least eight times in the ongoing legal saga, which Diana refers to as a "9-year squatter situation," although the case technically centers around a dispute over rent stabilization laws with the two sides disputing nearly every aspect of the case.

"It drained my daughter’s college fund," Diana told Fox News Digital inside his home while wearing a now-outdated T-shirt that says, "Stuck with 8-year-squatter."

"Now we’re borrowing money to pay for college while this just keeps dragging on. It gets pretty stressful. People think eviction cases are like TV where it takes two weeks. In New York it can take years, and this one has turned into almost a decade."

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Attorneys for the tenant strongly dispute Diana’s characterization of the case, and the tenant at one point sued Diana, claiming the apartment had been improperly removed from rent stabilization protections.

"Mr. Diana’s distortion of the facts in this case is a sad attempt to harass our client out of her rent-stabilized apartment, and he will not be successful," Casey Gilfoil, an attorney with Brooklyn Legal Services, told Fox News Digital.

Gilfoil said a judge has already ruled Diana improperly removed the apartment from rent stabilization and said the remaining issue before the court is determining the legal rent and any potential damages.

Brooklyn Legal Services also says the tenant has money set aside in escrow pending the court’s final ruling.

Diana pushed back, saying the court did not find that he committed fraud and that he followed the guidance he says he received from New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal when the apartment was deregulated years before the tenant sued. "The judge ruled there was no fraud," Diana told Fox News Digital. "She said I incorrectly destabilized the apartment. I did it as they told me to."

Diana also disputed Brooklyn Legal Services’ claim that the tenant has years of rent saved in escrow, saying the numbers do not add up and that, based on court communications regarding her employment history, it is unlikely she has accumulated "anywhere near" $300,000.

Diana says the occupant’s lawsuit relied on what he describes as a series of shifting and contradictory claims, including allegations that the original elderly tenant was not disabled, that the occupant had been on the lease and that the apartment was illegally deregulated.

During depositions, Diana said his attorney challenged those claims with emails, photographs, rent records and testimony. He contends the allegations did not withstand scrutiny during questioning.

"She got destroyed on all 18 claims," Diana said. "And once those fell apart, they just made up new ones."

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Court stipulations required the occupant to make monthly use-and-occupancy payments, similar to interim rent payments, of roughly $835 per month at one point, but Diana says those payments stopped years ago. He estimates total unpaid rent now ranges between $275,000 and $325,000.

In her deposition, the occupant testified she has not worked full time in years and has limited income, a factor Diana says the courts have effectively allowed to justify continued nonpayment.

Diana, who started a GoFundMe page to help with his financial struggles, says the prolonged case has left him struggling to maintain his building and cover basic expenses, including tuition for his children.

"One apartment out of eight not paying rent wipes out any profit," Diana said. "Judges talk in terms of months. They don’t talk about what $300,000 actually does to a family."

He also pointed to an overall problem with the system and described repeated housing court inspections that he says resulted in excessive and duplicative violations, which further delayed proceedings and increased costs.

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"They’ll cite you for a paint drip from 20 years ago and call you a slumlord," Diana said. "Meanwhile, the tenant hasn’t paid rent in nearly a decade."

Diana says his case highlights what he views as a systemic imbalance in New York’s housing courts that allows bad-faith actors to exploit tenant protections indefinitely.

"They tell you to sell your building. They tell you to accept a buyout, to pay the person who owes you hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said. "That’s not justice. That’s legalized theft."

In April, the case was adjourned again until this summer, essentially guaranteeing that the saga will extend into its 10th year.

"This court case has become a Twilight Zone Marathon," Diana said.

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.

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