A woman accused of squatting is demanding a pair of New York City homeowners pay her $25,000 to leave the property, as squatting incidents rise in frequency across the country.
Homeowners have been increasingly complaining of squatters, or people living in their homes without permission, in recent years. While some squatters are homeless and take advantage of a temporarily vacant property while the homeowners are away, many others are tenants who overstay their welcome after refusing to pay rent.
In New York City’s Upper West Side, a couple faces a woman who is now demanding $25,000 to leave the property.
Nancy Hament and husband Richard Scarola first let Celeste Champoux stay at their property after the couple’s friend, film producer John Corso, said Champoux was moving to Hawaii and needed a temporary place to crash.
Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images
It’s now over a year later, and Champoux has refused to leave, a lawsuit filed by the couple this week alleges.
Champoux also said the couple needs to pay her $25,000 if they want her to leave, according to the suit.
This is not the first time Champoux has found herself in the middle of eviction lawsuits, but she alleges that Hament and Scarola are committing “elder abuse” by cutting off electricity and water, Champoux’s attorney told the New York Post.
“You can’t just cut off essential services to intimate her to move,” lawyer Stephen C. Dachtera told the publication.
The couple has also filed the suit against the friend who initially introduced them to Champoux, and they allege he committed fraud because he knew Champoux would continue staying in the unit without a legal right.
The lawsuit claims Corso “falsely represented that Champoux had a planned move to Hawaii and that her stay would be for a very short time.”
The couple said that they agreed Champoux could only stay for a short period of time.
“Champoux acquired her occupancy of the Premises through fraud by Corso to plaintiff’s great and continuing damage,” the lawsuit said.
In the two previous eviction cases involving Champoux, Corso was also named in connection to the alleged fraud and squatting.
Champoux had an eviction notice leveled against her in 2014 for not paying rent, but she said she didn’t pay the rent because of a lack of repairs at the unit. Corso said he would pay Champoux’s rent once he got funding for a new film. For that property, Champoux paid less than $3,000 of the $60,000 owed. She was evicted from the unit in 2018 after living there for 46 years.
Champoux’s next place, in Midtown at the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen’s Club, also had difficulties with her as a tenant. She said she was approved to live there for free in exchange for helping the property with marketing.
But the club’s lawyer said during a pretrial hearing in 2020 that Corso and Champoux “perpetrated a fraud” by pretending Champoux had marketing skills.
“Our director fell for her story, that she was a marketing expert, according to her friend, and this other gentleman,” Margaret Ann Harley, secretary of the club’s board, said to the court.
“And she was not a marketing expert at all. She … didn’t perform any duties and then we asked her to leave, and she wouldn’t leave.”
Champoux left three years later based on a COVID hardship declaration and then moved into Hament and Scarola’s property shortly afterward.
Champoux’s lawyer, Dachtera, said his client is elderly and struggles with hearing.
“The landlord is not allowed to subject her to and engage in elder abuse,” Dachtera told the Post.
Newsweek reached out to the parties for comment via email on Wednesday.
Alan Chang, nationwide title and escrow expert, urged property owners to have a written agreement drafted by professionals for any type of short- or long-term stay.
“It is always sad to see people take advantage of people on a regular basis,” Chang told Newsweek. “The absurd concept that people that break the law have additional rights does not make sense to me. More and more of our society share ideas and strategies to game the system and create unjust enrichment.”
He added: “It is not worth the slight savings by trying to draft a lease based on a document you found online, hire a professional.”
