Well, I’m going to go with the popular opinion that the only reason the tenants left the current apartment wasn’t because “it was the right thing to do.” He left because he found a more advantageous dwelling to exploit and abuse and hes “restarting the clock” on the eviction process at this new site.
The TV clip is kind of humorous: the commentator nitpicks how “badly” they left the apartment: she notes that :horror: “Tools were left behind,” displaying a trowel on the kitchen counter. Uh, they should be thanking their stars that there wasn’t: water damage, stains on all the carpets, decaying food, trash/boxes/detritus piled in heaps everywhere, the wafting smell of ammonia and decomposition. Cmon: those rooms looked substantially clean. They got off lucky.
I have my doubts, but it’s certainly possible. If so, then it’s a mess for everyone involved.
It’s good to remind us to remember the fear of homelessness. I experienced that as a kid and my family being kicked out of rental housing. That empathy shouldn’t be unpopular.
The property right doesn’t really matter to me. I just also know families whose life savings have vanished because of fraudsters.
I don’t buy this - the squatter just sold a home. He has, by definition, a large sum of money, assuming he didn’t like barely squeak out of a mortgage. Sure, he probably doesn’t want to use that to rent or whatever, but finding an apartment to live in for a while and a storage unit is not impossible.
There’s certainly a scenario where the squatter is in a bad state here, sure, but I don’t find it particularly likely, and in doing this he’s actively causing the exact same harm to the buyers, who are paying the mortgage for him, so even in that case I’m inclined to side with the buyers.
In some places it’s notoriously difficult to “evict” people - even those who are technically trespassers or squatters. There’s plenty of horror stories out there of Airbnb hosts who basically lost their homes due to the shenanigans of unscrupulous guests exploiting tenant-friendly loopholes.
Well, you’re looking at one tenant who rode off into the sunset on a bicycle and trailer with his worldly possessions, so yeah, some of us realize where we stand.
Given Hossam Boktor’s history of tax evasion and worker’s compensation fraud, I’ll stick with the opinion that screwing over other people is his go-to solution for any problem he faces.
My guess is that it’s not really a choice for them. A lot of people stretch themselves thin to buy a house. They’ve now been paying rent in addition to mortgage and legal fees associated with this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took out an additional like of credit that could only be paid back by flipping the house.
Or, akin to a home invasion, the house is tarnished and after a year of contemplation they see themselves living elsewhere.
Did you watch the video? He used the bolt cutters to cut a chain lock from a door. There are other ways to do it if you want to get fancy, but bolt cutters are faster and replacing a chain lock is trivial–in cost, time needed, and skill required.
It’s not at all uncommon in the US. We had to do it on our last purchase, as our new home wasn’t ready. If you have to get the proceeds of your sale to complete your purchase, or the closing of your purchase is delayed, or you’re having something built that isn’t done, it’s sometimes necessary.
Chain locks are useless - they are usually fastened with short #6 or #8 screws and won’t stand up to an attack by someone that hits the partially open door really hard. Door viewers are a much better security option and cost about the same.
on top of paying the rent. I put a 60000 dollar deposit and 15000 in repairs into a property I signed a rent to own contract on. the owners remortgaged the property after it went up in value and sunk the money into failing learning academies in B.C. and Alberta that went under. I spent an additional 20, 000 in legal fees to try and just get just my deposit back and won a judgement against the owners in court, but there was a million dollars in leans ahead of mine. and now last month after 10 years the law firm told me that judgement could no longer be renewed. I think I’m going to don my inflatable puffy, fat batman costume with a knit head piece and ride my miniature clown bicycle all the way from Vancouver Island to Cranbrook B.C. peddle up to their accounting firm and give them the "un bras d’honneur " gesture “an arm of honour” hoping a few people or even just someone might turn up and care to watch.
It’s becoming more common. One scenario is that the seller needs to sell their house before they can buy a new one, but wants to avoid having to move twice. So they make an arrangement to rent back for a while with the buyer.
If people are able to move into their new house at the same time as they close on their old one, there’s typically no need to do it. Looking around a little I see people considering it as an option all over the English-speaking world.
We did when we built a house twenty years ago; we specifically accepted one of a couple of very similar offers because they were willing to rent back to us for a couple of months. Builders being builders, we still wound up moving into temporary housing but for only two weeks. The movers kept most of our stuff in storage for that time. It really wasn’t bad.
Obviously there are some risks.
It would have been great to do that when we moved into our current place, but no such luck; we wound up moving into a friend’s vacant condo for three months after we closed on the old place and before we could move into the new one.
