Man Exploits Legal Loophole To Live Rent-Free In New York Hotel, Then Claims Ownership Of It

A court in Manhattan, New York has found a man guilty of filing false real property records claiming ownership of a hotel, where he was living rent-free for five years.

Mickey Barreto was accused of exploiting a loophole in the law to live in the New Yorker Hotel from 2018 to 2023, without paying any rent.

New Yorker Hotel

What is the loophole

According to reports it all began in 2018 when his boyfriend told him about a legal loophole that permitted tenants of single rooms in buildings built before 1969 to request a six-month lease.

So he and his boyfriend paid about $200 to rent one of the more than 1,000 rooms in the towering Art Deco structure built in 1930.

The next day, he asked for a lease, claiming that because he'd paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a tenant.

Got favourable verdict

But when the hotel refused to entertain his request, Barreto went to the court and got a default verdict in his favour, because the lawyers for the building's owners didn't show up.

Since then Barreto has been living in the hotel, rent-free. But he did not stop there and in 2019 he uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976.

AP

Convicted, arrested

Barreto then tried to charge various entities as the owner of the building ¡°including demanding rent from one of the hotel¡¯s tenants, registering the hotel under his name with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection for water and sewage payments, and demanding the hotel¡¯s bank transfer its accounts to him.

Based on the complaint filed by the building's owner, Barreto was found guilty on 24 counts and the 48-year-old was arrested last week.

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