ATLANTA — High-end squatters allegedly lived in a $1 million Atlanta house rent-free and refused to leave for years.
An Atlanta couple says the nightmare all started more than two years ago.
Channel 2 Action News cameras were there this week as Fulton County Marshalls served an eviction at the Ansley Park home, piling belongings in the front yard.
But the story started more than two years earlier.
“The buyers came in with a sweet deal,” homeowner Chad Sims told Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray.
Sims thought he had a deal to sell his home in September 2019.
“In my opinion, I don’t think they were ever going to buy the house. It’s just, I think that’s how they got in,” Sims said.
Fulton County court documents show the potential buyer was Corey Fuller.
Sims said for months, Fuller kept pushing back the closing date, then canceled the deal last fall but stayed in the house -- and stopped paying rent.
Sims said he hasn’t received a dime in rent since last January.
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He spent a year trying to evict the family while he was forced to live in a series of short-term rentals, spending money each month on mortgage, rent and thousands of dollars in attorney fees.
Meanwhile, Fuller filed a series of court motions that repeatedly delayed and held up the eviction.
“You know, money’s a big thing. But I had to move my family six different times in the past 10 months, and that’s my daughter, my husband, even my dog,” Sims said.
Gray checked Fulton County court records and found at least four other writs of dispossessory filed against Fuller for four different Atlanta properties.
In Cobb County, Fox News Channel star Sean Hannity sued Fuller. In that case, a judge ordered Fuller to pay Hannity more than $900,000 in another real estate dispute.
We’ve been trying to reach Fuller for several weeks, since before he was evicted.
Fuller’s attorney, Grady Roberts, told Gray in an email: “They are not squatting, they are landlord and tenant. The landlord/tenant dispute arose after a tree fell on the residence.”
A tree did fall on the home in October 2020, but Sims said the Fullers would not let contractors in to complete the repair work and continued to live in the home for another 14 months, refusing to pay rent most of that time.
“I feel like I won a Super Bowl, and I just got out of an abusive relationship,” Sims said.
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