Housing Speculator to Ms. Ward: "I'm Innocent"

“The sale is 100 percent legal,” insisted Shameem Chowdhury of the Bed-Stuy home he purchased in 2008. “There were more than 20 of us that day bidding on that house; it started at $200,000, and I paid $345,000.

“If I did not buy it, someone else would have bought it.”

Today, the 56-year-old Chowdhury wishes someone else had in fact bought the three-story frame house at 320 Tompkins Avenue.

Because what seemed like a big win that day for Chowdhury and his real estate company 768 Dean, Inc., was actually the beginning of a three-year migraine. He soon learned, the house’s previous owner——never intended to sell the house at all, and further, had no intentions of leaving.

It turned out, Ms. Ward was the victim of a predatory lender back in 1995. As a result, Ms. Ward lost the mortgage, and since then, the title to her house bounced from bank to bank until landing at an auction—the auction Chowdhury had the bad luck of attending and making a purchase.

So, for the next three years, Chowdhury, a 30-year resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant who immigrated from Bangladesh, would find himself in and out of court with Ms. Ward—civil, housing, bankruptcy— both of them fighting for the same house. For her part, she was trying to prove that the house was taken from her illegally. For his part, he believed Ms. Ward was now taking the house illegally from him.

“I felt bad for her, she was an elderly lady,” said Chowdhury. “But it was 2008. She had 13 years to try to fix that before the auction. Why was she fighting me? Why didn’t she fight [the ones] who did that to her?”

Chowdhury said he tried to sell the house right back to Ms. Ward for the $345,000 he paid. He didn’t want the headache. But she refused his offer. And she refused to move out of the house with two rental units from which Ms. Ward continued to collect rent. Meanwhile, Chowdhury—a devout Muslim, father and well-known business owner of properties along Fulton Street—was paying the property taxes on a home he didn’t have access or keys to.

So he and Ms. Ward took turns dragging the other into court. And for each appearance, the judge ruled the same: Shameem Chowdhury was the property’s new owner.

“I got the order from the judge long time before, that I could go inside the house. But I just want to be a nice person. I have a good relationship with the community, you know, and I want to keep good relationships; that’s why I am not aggressive,” said Chowdhury, who has no plans to live in the house; he says he bought it purely for investment. “But all these three years, you know how much money I’ve had to spend for these cases, interest and other bills for this house?”

Most recently, Ms. Ward enlisted the help of Common Law, a non-profit legal organization that fights for community rights and Organizing for Occupation (O4O), an all-volunteer-run non-profit of housing advocates.

The organizations staged a of more than 200 residents and other fair housing organizations in front of the property on August 19, the date Chowdhury had set to send the New York City Marshals out to finally take possession of the house.

is that not only was the initial loan taken against Ms. Ward’s home illegal, but that for 16 years, a shoddy paper trail -- as the house bounced from bank to bank (most of which have since gone out of business for illegal lending practices) -- has left no clear evidence of a title holder.

But Chowdhury says he owns the title: “How does property change hands illegal with no title? If you go to propertyshark.com or downtown Brooklyn, you do a title search, you see that I own the title,” he said.

“How could this be illegal if a Supreme Court judge ordered that property has been sold? That judge is not stupid over there. He is an educated guy, and if he did something illegal, he would lose his job!”

Chowdhury says, because of this ongoing battle, he hasn’t purchased any property in the last three years. Nor has he retained a lawyer, because he hasn’t had to; he says every court that has reviewed the case has ruled in his favor.

In the meantime, O4O and Common Law have reached out to NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman requesting his office launch an investigation into Ms. Ward’s case and predatory lending practices that have ravaged New York communities like Bed-Stuy.

Also, to buy back the house from him for $70,000, money Ms. Ward had sitting in escrow, with an arrangement for Chowdhury to submit the full cost of the house as a tax write off.

“Do you think anybody in the United States of America who paid almost a half a million dollars on a property would accept $70,000? Why should I have to tax write off? What is that, $50,000?” said Chowdhury. “This is nonsense talk. This is the first time I’m talking harsh words, because I try not to get into that kind of conflict, talk these kinds of things. But would you accept that?”

“I have sympathy for her. If she had come to me and said, ‘Look, Mr. Chowdhury, help me out,’ I’d call a few other organizations and tell them to help her. I’ll even give her some money. But those people behind her, they don’t give her a dime.

“In my life, I never rob from nobody, and in this community, everybody [knows] who I am. But I’m not going to run. I go by the justice system, and I’m innocent,” he said.

“CNN, CBS, NBC, they all come to me a few weeks ago, but I did not want to talk to them because I did not want to look aggressive against this lady. I’m quiet. I watch. I thought that eventually, time will tell, and people would look at the law and see the injustice. But that isn’t happening, so I finally said ‘yes,’ to this interview.

“Look, if you have sympathy, let’s go help this lady, give her a house. If I pay $1,000, another person, $1,000… how many churches in this community… until $50,000; let her stay in a decent place. But that is my house.”

When asked whether he would consider letting Ms. Ward stay in the home as a tenant, he hesitated, “Umm,” then answered, “I could consider that, yes.”