A Seattle area landlord has won a round against a "serial squatter" who refuses to leave his $2 million home. No, of course the landlord didn't get approval to kick out the squatter. No, the landlord didn't win the right to get inside the home to see what damage has been done to his property, either. No, this "clown show" win was as humble as it was gobsmacking. It shows how the judicial system is weaponized against property owners.
On April 8, landlord Jaskaran Singh won the right to protest in front of his own home in the suburb of Bellevue. That's it; that's the win.
His irascible and conniving "tenant," Sang Kim, uses free lawyers from a housing "rights" NGO that is well supplied with taxpayer money. They're playing with house money and have kept up the grift for months.
Kim swore out a complaint against Singh and got a judge to approve a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to force the homeowner/landlord to stay away from the squatter and the house. When Kim and his free attorney failed to show up for a hearing on Monday at the appointed time, the TRO was dropped. Still, that's hardly the end of the matter.
Related: What if the Jacobins Came for Your Property? A Seattle Man Is Living the Nightmare
Jonathan Choe, a Seattle-area journalist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow on the housing and homeless beat, was there to see for himself how the King County Justice Project's free lawyer stumbled into the courtroom an hour late with Mr. Kim.
BREAKING: Huge win for Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh. Monday morning, a King County court commissioner dismissed the Temporary Protection Order filed against him by serial squatter Sang Kim. It was an easy decision since Kim and an attorney with King County Housing Justice… pic.twitter.com/UNuLUKtV7R
— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) April 9, 2024
Here's what Choe observed.
Huge win for Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh. Monday morning, a KingBREAKING: Huge win for Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh. Monday morning, a King County court commissioner dismissed the Temporary Protection Order filed against him by serial squatter Sang Kim. It was an easy decision since Kim and an attorney with King County Housing Justice Project showed up more than an hour late for the hearing.
They begged for a continuance but the commissioner did not buy it. I saw the HJP playbook first hand. Unload a laundry list of excuses then blame someone else for their failure. Total clown show.
Kim was accompanied by Housing Justice Project staff attorney Robina Rayamajhi. The commissioner did not allow the hearing to the be recorded. But trust me, the excuses were endless.
Only Kim and Rayamajhi were allegedly in the wrong courtroom when the hearing started. Everyone else made it on time. Hard to believe a savvy attorney would have this issue.
Homeowner Jaskaran Singh leased his five-bedroom, two-million-dollar home to Kim in 2022. Kim paid fees and two months' rent and then settled in to mooch the rest. And voila, here we are in 2024 and Singh still can't get the guy out.
Related: You Didn't Think This Squatter Situation Just Appeared Out of Nowhere, Did You?
The landlord and his supporters have protested outside the home in an appeal to Kim's sense of shame.
This now means Singh can protest in front of his rental property and publicy shame Kim until he leaves this $2M property in Bellevue's Woodridge neighborhood.
— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) April 9, 2024
So far, HJP has used nearly $100K in taxpayer dollars to pay for Kim's back rent. pic.twitter.com/nOQruxwnBc
Protesters chanted "Come out, con man" and Korean expressions about shame. A sign reads, "Sang, stop embarrassing your family." Other signs call for an investigation into the Housing Justice group's perpetuation of the thievery.
But it turns out that Mr. Kim is shameless. The squatter pulled this stunt at another property for two years before "leasing" Singh's property. We guess background checks aren't what they used to be.
So shameless is Kim that Choe reports the squatter sent nasty messages to Singh, threatening to send messages to college admissions offices where his kids apply to tell them about him trying to boot him out.
Court documents show a text thread where Kim is basically saying he plans on filing a police report to ruin any chance of Singh's children getting into college. All of this information was going to be vital in Singh's defense against a Temporary Protection Order filed by Kim. But a King County court commissioner dismissed the case before it even got to that point.
Singh said he'll return to protesting to "fix the broken system." "We need better laws," he told Choe.
One of the signs at a recent protest before Singh was ordered to stay away from his own property read, "Eviction Delay=Dream Decay."
And that's what this is really about. The Jacobins are agitating over and over to make private property as difficult to own as possible. They believe all should be free to squat. They want to kill the American Dream because racism or something hundreds of years ago.
Years ago, I was on a commission on the U.S. Constitution. I heard a lecture from an American law school smart guy who related the story of helping a country of the former Soviet Union write its new constitution. He was told that the very first thing these reformers wanted to do was protect private property rights.
And here? We're just trying to throw them away.
Editor's note: An earlier edition of this article said that journalist Jonathan Choe was among the protestors at Singh's property; to clarify, Choe was present as a reporter covering the protest.
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