The city is shamelessly demanding a pair of Brooklyn landlords fork over $160,000 to pay for “relocating” a group of squatters who commandeered their properties.
A convicted sex offender was among the squatters, but exactly who the city relocated is unknown.
Mohammad Choudhary and Boysin Lorick say they’re at their wits end in a years-long saga over the three investment homes they bought for about $1.3 million on Neptune Avenue in Coney Island in May 2019.
The pair first struggled with pandemic-related closures and delays, then a gaggle of squatters led by the convicted sex abuser broke in, refused to leave and allegedly rented the homes to others.
After months of complaints, police and the city marshal finally ousted the freeloaders in December 2022.
The landlords said they then spent an estimated $300,000 and more than a year renovating the properties, and started to rent them out about eight months ago to six different families.
But last month, they were slapped with notice of more than $400,000 in liens from the city.
“Everything is wonderful, until this lien,” Choudhary told The Post.
The liens from the departments of Housing and Preservation, Finance and Environmental Protection include unpaid water bills, emergency repair, and back taxes along with multiple charges for “relocation.”
The city regularly charges negligent landlords for the cost of relocating tenants when the poor conditions of a building lead to a vacate order.
But Choudhary and Lorick were not only “unaware of any relocation” — but they argue they should not be responsible for illegal interlopers in the first place, according to a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit.
They noted in the litigation they had no control or access to the building when it was overtaken by squatters who allegedly threatened them.
“Why is this relocation being charged to him? He had no knowledge of it, he had no control of it,” said lawyer Natraj Bhushan, who reps Choudhary and Lorick.
The lawyer claimed the city Buildings Department previously waived fines racked up while the squatters were present and that the landlords should not be responsible for the current liens “as they were completely deprived from repairing or renting the properties and were given no help whatsoever from city agencies for the period when these taxes accrued.”
“Taxes and water for all other periods were paid and are current,” the attorney said.
“To wait until he does all the work and say, ‘Here you go we’ll take this from you,” it’s sickening,” he added.
The Buildings Department declined comment.
The city Law Department said the case is under review.
“There are a wide range of protections provided to New Yorkers displaced from where they live, and we are committed to upholding those protections,” HPD spokesman Matt Rauschenbach told The Post. “The facts of this case will be borne out during the legal process. Given the ongoing litigation, we don’t have any further comment.”
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