Squatters’ rights? Homeowner forced out of home in dispute with unwanted guests

Authored by cleveland19.com and submitted by Forward-Answer-4407
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE/Gray News) - A Kentucky homeowner says he has been forced out of his own home after letting some guests stay in his garage while they fixed their car.

Daniel Toma says the guests ended up staying three months and a court order has now taken him out of his house.

“I just want this nightmare to end. I’ve been homeless the last few days,” he said.

Toma said he wished he never invited his friend, Amy Davis, and her boyfriend, Tyler Sencuk, to his house over the summer.

According to Toma, he let them stay at his home until their car could be fixed.

“[They] were working on the car for days in the driveway, I didn’t want to throw them out on the street. I was just trying to be kind,” he said.

However, the guests put a mattress in the garage in mid-July and ended up never leaving.

Toma said they started getting mail, had Spectrum cable installed and even changed the lock on his garage without any type of rental agreement between them.

“I asked them to go, my roommates asked them to go, but they wouldn’t leave. We tried to tell them to leave. He [Sencuk] started saying [they] had squatters’ rights,” Toma said.

Sencuk declined to speak on camera about the situation but said he was doing maintenance around the house in exchange for rent – something Toma denies. He also called Toma’s claims baseless and threatened to file a lawsuit.

Toma said he put up a 30-day eviction notice around Labor Day and the situation got worse between everyone at the home.

Sencuk and one of Toma’s roommates got into a fight. Sencuk then filed an emergency protective order against Toma, which a judge granted, forcing him to stay 500 feet away from them or his house.

“I feel like I have no power. I feel like I have no rights,” Toma said.

Retired Judge McKay Chauvin said forcing an owner out of their home is not unusual. He said messy divorces could force a husband or wife out if their spouse was granted a similar order.

An eviction expert said by letting the guests stay so long, the law allows them to claim possession and Toma would have had to fight the wanted eviction in court.

Toma has a court date next week to challenge the protective order and Sencuk has appeared to move out amid the dispute.

“I need to take care of things and I want to sleep in my own bed,” Toma said.

Copyright 2024 WAVE via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

InfiniteWatercress62 on September 18th, 2024 at 08:54 UTC »

Squatters rights isn’t even a thing in Kentucky until in possession of said property for 15 years. No one claimed squatters rights. Quite the opposite actually. He has 5 people living inside of that house charging rent without a lease (Not claiming the income). He charges whatever he wants to each individual and then demands they people steal stuff from each other. He has a schizophrenic, autistic, disabled, and one normal roommate who he treats like trash. He uses them for their disability and doesn’t work while still living in the house. We went to the garage after finding out he had a badddd bed bug problem which he slipped up and admitted to knowing he had before he asked us to move in to clean and do maintenance/repair work for him to sell the house later. You can even see clearly the pressure washing done to his drive compared to the neighbors. In the short time we were there I changed multiple tires, cleaned his whole house and garage, redid his sewage drainage pipes, fixed his spigot, installed new lighting fixtures, cut his grass, trimmed and removed bushes, unclogged drains, deep cleaning the house (ferrets shit everywhere), and even bought food for everyone multiple times. Hell I spent 100 dollars myself to DoorDash them all food once. We were looking for different housing since the bed bug issue came up. He asked for 250 for the following month to which we agreed. However on the first the schizophrenic roommate came out to try to fight me over my gf not refilling an ice tray. When o grabbed him to stop it he scratched and bit me. Then Daniel said we couldn’t stay there anymore and refused payment. I told him fine and we packed up immediately and installed two cameras and a new lock to avoid him and the other roommates joining together and lying on us while we moved out or stealing. The Epo was because he came out waiving a hi point on camera when no one had done a thing to him let alone even said a word to him. Then the next day broke in and stole stuff and broke a lot stuff. It’s all recorded and even recorded as the reporter for wave3 was made more than aware of this and shown evidence multiple times. They even have predated emails explaining this. Now they even go as far as to delete almost all of my friends comments that call that out. This is propaganda. The most fucked up part is that this could happen to anyone and label them some POS they are not. I have all the evidence to prove all of this yet I’m just being broadcast across the world.. it’s fucked up

TheRynoceros on September 18th, 2024 at 01:07 UTC »

$40 and a couple of jabronis will fix that real quick.

StillhasaWiiU on September 18th, 2024 at 00:35 UTC »

oh no i accidentally hit the house with this out of control bulldozer... whoops.