Trouble has been brewing in a highly affluent Beverly Hills neighbourhood as a group of squatters continues to host rowdy, late-night parties, despite the upset of their millionaire homeowner neighbours.
Residents of Beverly Crest, a neighbourhood on the border of Beverly Hills and Bel Air, have told several local media stations that the parties have been happening since October 2023, and normally start around 2 a.m. local time.
The gatherings allegedly run through the night, hosting swarms of loud, drunk and high partiers. Some neighbours in the area — whose residents include notable people and celebrities like LeBron James, John Legend and Seth MacFarlane — have complained the parties leave carnage by morning, including condoms and drug paraphernalia littered throughout the area.
At times, the squatters have reportedly charged an entry fee for their parties. On at least one occasion, they claimed to be raising money for the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, ABC-7 reported.
NBC Los Angeles reported the residence falls under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and LAPD officers told the outlet they’d been to visit the home five times in January alone.
And yet, the squatters remain.
The property was previously owned by Dr. Munir Uwaydah, an orthopedic surgeon who seemingly fled the U.S. about a decade ago after he was accused of being involved in the 2008 murder of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Julianna Redding. Uwaydah was never charged but in 2015 he was arrested in Germany over allegations he carried out one of California’s largest-ever health fraud schemes.
ABC-7 reported the property was most recently owned by MDRCA Properties LLC, which filed for bankruptcy last year.
The four-bedroom, seven-bathroom property is currently on sale for US$4.59 million (over C$6.19 million).
John Woodward IV, the property listing’s broker, spoke to KTLA and said he was told by the home’s pool caretaker that new tenants were moving into the property. He said he had been unaware, and when he visited the property, the locks had been changed and people were living inside.
Woodward said he was hired by the courts to sell the property and use the funds to pay back victims of Uwaydah’s Medicare fraud.
He said the squatters presented police with a fake lease.
“I’m just waiting for the court to make a decision, or somebody, to evict the tenants so I can get my listing back and sell the property,” Woodward told the outlet.
Fran Solomon, who owns the property next door to the house where the squatters reside, told NBC Los Angeles the partiers have been using trucks to unload “things that we can’t quite identify” in the middle of the night.
“There have been narcotics seen in cars that are at the house,” she alleged.
Some of the neighbours have reportedly hired a private investigator to sniff out dirt on the squatters.
“This is a very affluent area, paying exorbitant taxes and we can’t seem to get the proper response from the LAPD to close this down,” Solomon continued. “The law-abiding citizens aren’t getting protection from criminals that have taken over a home that doesn’t belong to them.”
Another neighbour, only identified as Rick, said he and others have on many occasions called police and the fire department on the squatters, as well as had tow trucks remove vehicles from their private property.
In the U.S., a person can be protected and remain on a piece of land if they meet stringent requirements for existing squatters’ rights. Legal squatter’s rights can protect someone who has been staying on vacant property, and only that property, for an uninterrupted period of time without receiving an eviction notice. In some states, including California, a squatter must occupy the property without eviction for at least five years.
In Canada, squatter’s rights vary province to province. Also called “adverse possession,” the squatter must be actively living on or making improvements to a piece of land for a set number of years before they can claim it as their own. To make a claim for adverse possession, the squatter must also have their presence at the property publicly known. A squatter would have to prove they meet all requirements for land rights in a civil court case.
Except for New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and the Yukon — where squatter’s rights have been abolished — the minimum occupation period is at least 10 years.
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