Two shameless Porsche-driving squatters, accused of deceiving a judge to gain legal rights to a house they don’t own, now want to be declared “heirs” to the property.
In what seems like an April Fool’s joke, Denton Gayle and Margaret Grover filed papers with Nassau Supreme Court on Monday asking that they be “added as heirs” to 39 Brussel Dr. in New Hyde Park, according to legal documents.
A legal heir is usually related to a person in some way.
The two-story Cape Cod has been in foreclosure for more than a decade and remained abandoned after all members of the immediate family that owned it, the Iaconos, died between 2015 and 2018, neighbors said.
Gayle and Grover are not related to the Iacono clan.
The couple claimed they “believe all mortgages (have) been settled” and requested to be added as a party to the foreclosure proceedings.
Lawyers for the National Bank Association of the United States, which is currently trying to complete the lengthy foreclosure process on the “zombie” house, quickly rejected the couple’s latest attempt in a letter to the judge.
Gayle, 29, and Grover, 19, claimed to have signed a rent-to-own agreement with owner Edward Iacono in July, even offering a lease with Iacono’s purported signature.
“A review of this “lease” shows that it would have been signed by Mr. Iacono on or about June 1, 2023. However, Mr. Iacono has been deceased since 2016. A copy of the death certificate is attached hereto. As such, it is clear that the proposed lease is fraudulent and is not valid,” the bank’s lawyers wrote in their Tuesday letter requesting the couple’s application be dismissed.
An eviction against Gayle and Grover is pending after Nassau Housing Court Judge Christopher Coschignano ordered them to vacate the premises last month.
Coschignano had paved the way for the couple’s stay in December, after allegedly falsely claiming that Iacono had rented the house to them and then locked them out.
A lawyer for the couple insisted they were not squatters and believed they had signed a valid rental lease in July with a man they thought was Edward Iacono.
“We are not trying to game the system or ask for anything unfair, what they are asking for here will allow us to be able to add our own voice and our own testimony to the record as the courts are trying to determine what happened here and what are the next steps,” said lawyer William Igbokwe.
New York Post
