Over the last year, a Seattle-area landlord has been trying to evict a tenant who has been living in his $2 million home for nearly two years without paying rent, but has been stymied by a legal non-profit that intervened to help the squatter and a backlogged, inefficient court system.
Serial squatter Sang Kim and his family first moved into mom-and-pop landlord Jaskaran Singh’s rental property in Bellevue, Wash., in summer 2022. Kim paid rent for the first month of the lease agreement, which expired in April 2023, and hasn’t since made another payment himself. Instead, he’s been receiving outside financing from a legal group sympathetic to his situation.
Kim presently owes Singh more than $50,000 in unpaid rent, given that the house costs $4,400 per month. Singh’s total financial losses are upwards of $80,000 when legal fees are taken into consideration.
“He’s not ready to pay. He’s exploiting the system basically,” Singh told local news station KOMO.
This isn’t the first time Kim has pulled a similar stunt: He has also refused to pay thousands of dollars in back rent to other homeowners in the Seattle area.
“Many individuals are rightfully questioning the fairness of a system where non-paying squatters can reside in Bellevue houses for extended periods without consequences,” Singh told National Review. “They receive access to facilities and even free legal representation, essentially getting a free pass while hard working citizens bear the financial burdens of these injustices.”
Singh and his attorney, Stephen Freeborn, have filed four separate eviction proceedings against Kim following months of non-payment and a failed attempt at mediation through Bellevue. But the legal process has been delayed, in part, by the King County court system. It is currently backlogged with at least 600 eviction cases, many of which were deferred during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Freeborn told National Review that local landlords are resorting to filing bankruptcy because the courts aren’t resolving the hundreds of eviction cases in a timely manner. This leads to homelessness for both landlords and tenants, he noted. Under Washington law, landlord-tenant cases should be resolved in 30 days.
Also contributing to the delay is the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project (HJP), which represents renters facing eviction, including Kim. The legal group paid the back rent through May 2023 and a three-month advance to give the tenant and his family time to move out. Kim ended up staying, however, and continues to give Singh legal trouble.
Freeborn noted it’s taken seven months to get into a court hearing due to, what he calls, HJP’s “delay tactics.”
“You finally get into the court hearing,” he said, “and Housing Justice Project jumps into the fray a day or two before the hearing and says, ‘We’ve just been retained by our client, and we’re going to need more time to talk to them. Therefore, we’re going to be asking for a continuance.'”
Freeborn pushed back against the group’s definition of a retainer. In order to be retained, an attorney must receive a fee when hired; HJP provides free legal services.
Once HJP steps in “at the last minute, then you’re another two to three months out for another hearing,” Singh’s attorney stated.
Ultimately, HJP requested a stay on eviction after a court granted Singh and Freeborn’s latest eviction filing a writ of execution in January. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April.
Freeborn believes the legal group is intentionally delaying the legal process so that Kim can stay in the house for an indefinite period of time.
“Their job is to keep people in homes,” he said. “If you look at their mission statement, they will do whatever it takes to keep people in the house — delay, delay, delay. That’s what they’ve done.”
Edmund Witter, senior managing attorney for HJP, told National Review that the group had reached out to the landlord’s attorney about coordinating rent payment.
However, Freeborn said HJP contacted him for the first time regarding payment on the day that National Review requested comment from both parties. Singh’s lawyer said the claim is a “total fabrication.”
Moreover, HJP’s Witter claimed Urban Views LLC — not Singh — owns the home that Kim is currently residing in. Freeborn called the assertion “nonsense,” clarifying that Singh serves as one of the managing members of the limited liability company.
Witter also provided his reasoning as to why Kim should keep living in the house: “Mr. Kim has several minor children in the household. His wife works at a nail salon, and Mr. Kim has had underemployment. In the fall of last year, the landlord started making videos of Mr. Kim, which has made it difficult to find employment or even other housing. If it was just him, I don’t think there’d be an issue with vacating on notice, but the other option is to live in a car with his minor kids.”
Kim recently filed a temporary restraining order against Singh for harassment, meaning the landlord must stay 1,000 feet away from his own home. The restraining order, scheduled to be heard in court on Thursday, was granted by a King County judge on March 15. A day later, Singh organized a mass protest with the local community and confronted Kim himself.
Standing in solidarity with the homeowner, neighbors and local politicians gathered outside the rental property on March 16 and 23 to raise awareness about the tenant’s refusal to pay rent and leave the premises. Last week, a GoFundMe page was set up in Singh’s name to help cover his mounting financial losses and legal expenses. The fundraiser seeks to raise $100,000; over $4,000 has been raised so far.
Enraged Bellevue residents organized the second protest on Singh’s behalf and will continue to hold mass rallies outside the rental property until Kim willingly leaves or is evicted. The third such protest will be held this Saturday, journalist Jonathan Choe posted on social media.
“It brings me great pride to see the community rallying around not just my case but also the struggles of all small landlords,” Singh said. “This issue goes beyond the mere non-payment of rent for the past twelve months; it’s about blatant theft and exploitation that has been overlooked for far too long.”
Sean Flynn, executive director and board president of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, said he understands the public frustration but acknowledges that the wider problem is the standard policies that were put into place by the state legislature and local politicians.
“If we’re going to be protesting on either side, we should be protesting or discussing this around the system and not about individual cases,” Flynn said. “This is about the system as a whole that is broken, and that our politicians have broken it by putting into place policies that have led us to these results.”
This episode comes as the country experiences a rise in squatting complaints. Squatters have taken advantage of lax tenant-protection laws, particularly in New York City.
Late last month, a Queens landlord was arrested for unlawful eviction of tenants that moved into her vacant home without her knowledge. Because at least one of the squatters lived there for at least 30 days, it was their word against the homeowner’s.
In New York City, squatters can claim tenant rights after living on a property for 30 days. This tenant-protection law is much more generous than the one in New York’s statewide law, which requires squatters to remain on a property for ten consecutive years before gaining such rights.
Despite being the landlord, Adele Andaloro was taken into custody after she attempted to change the locks on her home. Under New York City law, it is illegal for homeowners to change the locks, switch off utilities, or remove personal items belonging to their tenants from the property.
Last week, a New York state assemblyman introduced a bill to exclude squatters from claiming tenant rights. The legislation also seeks to extend the amount of time that someone can gain such rights: 45 days, rather than the current 30.
Squatting cases have also surged in Los Angeles and Atlanta, with the latter being at the center of the crisis. At least 1,200 properties are currently occupied by squatters in the Atlanta area, according to the National Rental Home Council.