Seattle-Area Landlord Struggling to Evict Serial Squatter over Two Years of Non-Payment
Over the last year, a Seattle-area landlord has been trying to evict a tenant who has been living in his $2 million home for nearly two years without paying rent, but has been stymied by a legal non-profit that intervened to help the squatter and a backlogged, inefficient court system.
Serial squatter Sang Kim and his family first moved into mom-and-pop landlord Jaskaran Singh’s rental property in Bellevue, Wash., in summer 2022. Kim paid rent for the first month of the lease agreement, which expired in April 2023, and hasn’t since made another payment himself. Instead, he’s been receiving outside financing from a legal group sympathetic to his situation.
Kim presently owes Singh more than $50,000 in unpaid rent, given that the house costs $4,400 per month. Singh’s total financial losses are upwards of $80,000 when legal fees are taken into consideration.
“He’s not ready to pay. He’s exploiting the system basically,” Singh told local news station KOMO.
This isn’t the first time Kim has pulled a similar stunt: He has also refused to pay thousands of dollars in back rent to other homeowners in the Seattle area.
“Many individuals are rightfully questioning the fairness of a system where non-paying squatters can reside in Bellevue houses for extended periods without consequences,” Singh told National Review. “They receive access to facilities and even free legal representation, essentially getting a free pass while hard working citizens bear the financial burdens of these injustices.”
Singh and his attorney, Stephen Freeborn, have filed four separate eviction proceedings against Kim following months of non-payment and a failed attempt at mediation through Bellevue. But the legal process has been delayed, in part, by the King County court system. It is currently backlogged with at least 600 eviction cases, many of which were deferred during the Covid-19 pandemic.
