Public Administrator Takes Over Bayside Home After Squatter Arrests

Detectives arrested two people accused of squatting in a dead man’s Bayside house for more than two years, Queens prosecutors said, and the Public Administrator, already the court-appointed custodian of the owner’s estate, had the property padlocked the same day. The case moves a years-old estate dispute into its next phase: a vacant home with no will, no heirs, and a lender waiting on a foreclosure that still has not closed.

Why it matters

Richard Klibschon lived alone at 23-40 205th Street in Bayside and died in 2018 without a will or immediate heirs, according to ABC7’s reporting. He had taken out a reverse mortgage on the house, and the lender’s law firm told neighbors it could not remove whoever was living there because the foreclosure sale was not complete. Neighbors told ABC7 a man moved into the home as early as March 2024, and the law firm petitioned Queens Surrogate’s Court to have a Public Administrator appointed over the estate in 2025. That petition succeeded: the court named the Public Administrator lawful custodian of the home in May 2026. A July hearing on removing the occupants drew no one to contest it, QNS reported. On September 24, detectives arrested Vernon Glass and Lusascha Taylor, both 41, at the house, which was padlocked afterward. They were arraigned the same day in Queens Supreme Court on a three-count indictment charging second-degree burglary, second-degree grand larceny, and second-degree criminal trespass, with a court date set for October 1. “You simply cannot move into a home without permission and claim you have a right to stay,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said, adding that the home “has been secured to prevent their return.” See our New York coverage for related Queens stories, including our report on the Plaza Hotel’s four-year closure.

The numbers

City property records confirm the house itself never left Klibschon’s name. NYC Department of Finance’s PLUTO file, under BBL 4058040028 (Queens block 5804, lot 28), still lists “KLIBSCHON, RICHARD” as owner, with a 1,130-square-foot one-family home on a 4,320-square-foot lot, built in 1950, assessed at $61,500 total ($14,040 of that on the land) in the city’s 2026 roll. ACRIS party filings tied to the same 205th Street address show both Richard and Margaret Klibschon named on deed and mortgage-related documents dated between 2013 and 2017, the most recent activity on file before his death the following year. None of those records show a transfer of title since, which is consistent with a reverse-mortgage foreclosure that the lender’s own law firm said had not closed as of the squatter dispute going public.

What’s next

With the Public Administrator now in physical control of a padlocked house, not just a paper custodianship, the estate moves toward the standard vacant-decedent pipeline: the reverse-mortgage foreclosure can proceed to sale, or the Public Administrator can sell the property directly to settle the lien and close an estate with no will and no heirs on record. Neither QNS nor ABC7 reported a sale timeline. We will track Surrogate’s Court filings and ACRIS deed activity at BBL 4058040028 for the estate’s next step.