In a galling display of statism run amok, New York City has demanded that two Brooklyn landlords pay $160,000 to “relocate” squatters who illegally commandeered their properties.
You read that correctly. The tax-thieving city government is demanding that the legitimate property owners pay to relocate the people who trespassed and took over THEIR property.
Kathianne Boniello reports for the New York Post that this is not just a proposal, but that it has been policy for some time. In fact…
“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 the gaggle of squatters led by a 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.”
So much for that august and errant term “first responders.”
But the story, which is merely one example of the city’s collectivist crushing of rights, continues:
“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.’”
That’s correct. The city charged them for “relocation” of the people who never should have been LOCATED on their property, in the first place.
And the method by which New York City is leaning on the property owners to cough up the cash is, itself, based on a city ordinance allowing the government to cite a landlord for negligence and order property to be vacated, then, to order the property owner to pay for the residents’ relocation.
That, itself, leaves property owners open to easy government manipulation, without due process, and it skips what should be the proper method of addressing conflicts between renters and landlords: courts, for violation of contract.
But this? This makes things far worse, leaving clearly innocent property owners on the hook to pay for the moves of the very people who exploited them.
Adds Boniello:
“…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.”
And they repeatedly contacted the government about the problem – to no avail.
Now, they pay, on top of the Big Apple forcing them to pay for the purported “protection” system that did not protect them.
This is not just a local scandal—it’s a glaring violation of the Natural Right to private property, a breach of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, and a microcosm of how the state itself operates as a squatter over our lives and liberties.
Related: NYC Declares Landlords Can't Increase Rent Higher Than Inflation
Private property is not a mere social construct or a privilege granted by the state. It is a fundamental Natural Right, rooted in the reality of human existence. As John Locke articulated, individuals have a right to the fruits of their labor, and property—whether land, homes, or capital—embodies that labor. When someone purchases or inherits property, they are not merely acquiring a thing; they are staking a claim to their own efforts, their own life’s work. To deny this is to deny the individual’s sovereignty over their own existence. Yet, in Brooklyn, the NYC Emperors are trampling this sacred right by forcing landlords to bear the financial burden of relocating trespassers who have no legal or moral claim to their property. This is not justice—it’s theft, sanctioned by the state.
The Eighth Amendment explicitly prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” Forcing the property owners to pay $160,000 to relocate squatters—without any due process, without a trial, without even a pretense of legal justification— clearly is cruel and unusual punishment. There has been no trial. There has been no accusation of violent criminal activity.
The landlords are being punished for the “crime” of owning property, penalized for asserting their rightful control over what is theirs. The state is treating the owners as guilty parties, stripping them of their wealth and dignity without evidence or recourse. If this isn’t cruel and unusual, what is?
Of course, on a greater, philosophical, scale, the squatters who never stop are those in government. Just as the squatters in Brooklyn have taken over buildings without consent, the state assumes it can invade our rights, dictate our actions, and extract our wealth at will. The city’s demand that the landlords pay for the squatters’ relocation mirrors the broader logic of statist collectivism: the state decides who deserves what, regardless of merit, contract, or morality. It’s the same logic that underpins taxation, regulatory takings, ID requirements, professional licensing, and the myriad ways the state erodes our autonomy. The politicians running this racket are no different from the squatters they’re gifting—they’re just better dressed and armed with badges.
This allows us to recall what I reported for MRCTV in 2023, when the New York City government told many landlords that they could not raise their rent beyond the rate of inflation, regardless of demand, and regardless of the rights of the owners to ask whatever they heck they should want to ask.
And who can forget the CDC’s unconstitutional eviction moratorium, begun during the Trump Administration and effectively forcing landlords to subsidize non-paying tenants under the guise of “COVID-related public health”? This federal tyranny, like New York City’s current scheme, treated property owners as serfs, obligated to serve others at their own expense. The parallel is stark: whether it’s tenants exploiting moratoriums or squatters exploiting lax laws, the state consistently sides with those who take against those who create.
The Brooklyn squatter scandal is a wake-up call. It reveals the fragility of property rights in a system where the state can arbitrarily strip them away. It exposes the cruelty of a government that punishes the innocent to appease the lawless. And it underscores the urgent need to reclaim our Natural Rights from a political mindset that treats us all as tenants in our own lives.