By Katie Wilson
Buckle up, it’s time for another sensational “nightmare tenant” story whipped up by right-wing media personalities. Ari Hoffman and Jonathan Choe first broadcast Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh Sarao’s sob story last November.
“While my tenant enjoys a relaxed lifestyle, buys new cars, and celebrates [with] barbecues, I continue to struggle to pay my bills and double mortgages,” Sarao told Hoffman.
This month, they apparently decided it was time for an escalation. Sarao (or an associate) turned to Nextdoor to promote a protest outside the home where his tenant, Sang Kim, lives with his wife and four children, saying that he’d been “suffering tremendously” and inviting “City council, Senators, and other community leaders … to join our neighbor to protest against non paying renters who refuse to vacate property despite an eviction order.”
And join they did. Bellevue Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis and Redmond Councilmember Steve Fields spoke at the rally, alongside Republican Party officials and notorious Seattle landlord Carl Haglund. At one point the crowd of between 50 and 100 broke into a chant: “No Pay, No Stay!” One participant held a “Landlord Lives Matter” sign; another sign reading “Serial Squatter Lives Here” was placed in the yard. After the speaker program, things began to get rowdy. A group, including Choe, banged on the tenant’s door until Bellevue Police yelled “Hey, we’re not doing that!” and ushered them back to the sidewalk.
Many will find the spectacle of a landlord calling a rally outside his tenant’s home absurd and gross, regardless of the details of the situation. Protesting at a residence generally raises tricky issues of ethics and legality. When the target is a public figure whose position and power allow them to ignore public protests, this may be the only way to (quite literally) bring home the harm their actions cause. A tenant in the middle of eviction proceedings and at risk of becoming homeless is clearly a different case. Actions aiming to drive people out of a community have a much uglier history.
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Of course, the absurdity is part of the point. We’re supposed to find it shocking that a landlord would need to resort to such a tactic to shake loose a “deadbeat tenant,” just as we were supposed to find it shocking that landlord Jason Roth was reduced to sleeping in his van and eating discount meat. But, as with that story, there’s more to this one than first meets the eye.
Who is “mom and pop” landlord Jaskaran Singh Sarao, who told Hoffman last fall both that he “lost [his] job in the summer” and that he “works two jobs to support [his] family and the tenant’s family”?
In addition to his own $1.3 million home not far away, Sarao owns at least one other property under his own name, a $1.1 million house two doors down from the tenant’s address.
The rental is actually owned by a matryoshka-like chain of LLCs, the last of which lists a person named Gaganjit Singh Jeji as its sole governor on the Washington Secretary of State’s website. If Sarao is indeed the owner, it’s likely that he’s named as such in the property’s operating agreement, which is not a public document. (I learned about this arrangement in the aftermath of the Roth story, and it’s part of what makes property ownership in Washington state so opaque—one of many reasons why it’s a bad idea to try to exempt “small landlords” from renter protection laws.)
These or other subsidiary LLCs own one other rental property (a duplex) and have been party to at least three multi-million dollar property purchase-and-sales in the past few years, two of them demo-and-rebuilds and one a straight flip. Sarao is listed as a governor of one of these LLCs, now dissolved, that sold one of these properties for $3.7 million in 2022. Jeji and Sarao also co-govern three more active LLCs that last reported owning property in 2020, 2018, and 2017.
The extent of Sarao’s financial interests in or profits from all this real estate activity is not a matter of public record. But this history at least suggests that we should take the struggling small landlord schtick with a grain of salt.
The video “circulated all around my kids’ school,” Kim said. “Two of his kids go to the same school as my two kids. My kids were bullied online and offline with that video.”
Sarao is also, as Christopher Randels noted on Twitter, a member of the Bellevue Human Services Commission, having been recommended by then-Deputy Mayor (and now protest attendee) Nieuwenhuis in 2022. Among other duties, the commission reviews applications from human service providers—including nonprofits working to address homelessness and housing insecurity—and makes funding recommendations to the council. Whether leading a protest outside a distressed renter’s home is appropriate conduct for someone in this position would make an interesting topic of discussion at the commission’s next meeting on April 2.
And who is “nightmare tenant” Sang Kim?
Kim has lived at the property with his wife and four children since mid-2022. He says he worked in procurement and contracting until his employer downsized near the end of that year, after a national pandemic task force that it had been part of was dissolved. “I’m still waiting for a delayed settlement from an incomplete contract I was hired to do,” he said, leaving him struggling to pay rent.
Kim received pandemic rental assistance through the Housing Justice Project, covering his family’s rent from October 2022 through May 2023. He hasn’t been able to pay since, and according to Sarao’s Nextdoor post now owes $45,000 in unpaid rent. Kim said that figure sounds about right.
Last fall, Sarao arrived at his door, accompanied by a camera-wielding Jonathan Choe. Choe posted the resulting video on Twitter with the headline “RENTER FROM HELL,” naming Sang Kim and stating the landlord’s claim that he is a “Con Man who is milking the ‘broken system’ that unfairly favors renters over mom and pop landlords.”
The video “circulated all around my kids’ school,” Kim said. “Two of his kids go to the same school as my two kids. My kids were bullied online and offline with that video.”
Ironically, he says the publicity made it much harder for him to leave the rental property.
“I’m trying to keep the kids in the same school,” Kim said. “The video made it difficult for me to find a new place to move, let alone get a job locally. I went to a job interview and the guy said ‘Aren’t you the guy in the video?’ and I had to just kind of walk out. It did nothing but benefit Jonathan Choe’s story, it didn’t benefit the landlord. It prolonged the process.”
When PubliCola requested comment from Choe, he responded by posting repeatedly on Twitter/X about the owner of PubliCola, Erica C. Barnett. He did not respond to our questions.
Sarao and his media amplifiers are outraged at the slow pace of the eviction proceedings. Sarao filed the current case in January and a hearing is scheduled for April 5. King County Superior Court is indeed moving more slowly than usual, but that’s because the court is dealing with an avalanche of evictions.
“Not just in King County but across the country, evictions are hitting record numbers, so there is a backlog,” says Edmund Witter, senior managing attorney of the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project, which is representing Kim. In November 2023, monthly eviction filings in King County climbed to nearly double the 2019, pre-pandemic numbers, and they’ve stayed significantly above that baseline since.
Kim says the landlord and his lawyers have only themselves to blame if things are moving slowly. “It’s not a broken system, it’s their broken approach to it,” he said. “They didn’t want to take the proper steps or give a fair chance to negotiate a repayment plan. They were cutting corners to get it done as soon as possible, and that’s why we got to this point.”
Sarao did not respond to my request for an interview.
“If they wanted to have a rally for landlords’ rights, they could have just as easily had it at a neighborhood park. Having it in front of the tenant’s house serves no purpose except harassment.”
Back to the protest outside Kim’s home. Whether you think it was appalling or justified, it may have been illegal.
Bellevue resident Bennett Haselton heard about the planned protest from Choe’s Twitter announcement. He showed up and recorded 90 minutes of the event on his GoPro. In the video, Haselton asks multiple participants the same question: “Why it wasn’t a violation of the anti-doxxing law for the landlord to organize this rally.”
The new law, RCW 4.24.792, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2023. Among other things, it prohibits the publication of an individual’s home address with “reckless disregard for the risk” that this “will be used to harm the individual whose information is published” or if it causes “mental anguish” or “substantial life disruption.”
Kim is now dealing with the aftermath of the protest. “It’s not easy,” he said. “Now I have people calling anonymously, using nasty language and hanging up. Most people who attended the protest weren’t even from the neighborhood.”
“If they wanted to have a rally for landlords’ rights, they could have just as easily had it at a neighborhood park,” Haselton said. “Having it in front of the tenant’s house serves no purpose except harassment.”
Or, if they wanted a location appropriate to their theme, they could have rallied outside the King County Courthouse in Seattle, where eviction cases are heard in superior court.
The protest also came close to violating an anti-harassment protection order that Kim obtained when he got wind of the plans. Kim says the judge promised to tell the Bellevue Police Department to expedite it, but the paperwork wasn’t delivered until the crowd was already disbanding. Sarao did know the order was coming, according to Kim, because he’d texted him a copy of it the day before.
The specter of “vigilante justice” by landlords, eagerly raised by Choe, has a long history. “It gave rise to one of the first landlord-tenant laws in the 1300s, when King Richard II prohibited landlords from taking the law into their own hands,” Witter said. Centuries later, Washington’s laws on forcible entry and detainer are interpreted to prohibit landlords from using menace, intimidation, or force to oust a tenant or occupant of a property, regardless of that person’s right to be there.
Of Sarao’s protest, Witter said, “this feels like a slide” away from the rule of law. Sarao and Choe now appear to be planning a second protest at the house.
As much as last weekend’s events were painful for him and his family, Kim says that he feels sorry for the landlord, too.
“To Jonathan [Choe] it might be excitement, but as far as me and the landlord, nobody won. Jonathan was running around trying to escalate the situation, provoking the police, pounding on the door and trying to get other people to do the same. It was practically a show. It wasn’t for the benefit of anybody. Jonathan got his story, that’s it.”
“Protesting at a residence generally raises tricky issues of ethics and legality. When the target is a public figure whose position and power allow them to ignore public protests, this may be the only way to (quite literally) bring home the harm their actions cause.”
Public figures don’t have the ‘position and power to ignore public protests’ – quite the opposite, since you can protest their actions at their workplace, which is something you cannot typically do to a private citizen.
Protest at a private residence unfairly impacts minor children and innocent neighbors.
This is tacky and should be illegal. But if you’re going to take that position, at least be intellectually consistent and condemn the same tactics when a liberal mob protests in front of a conservative politicians home.
“Protest at a private residence unfairly impacts minor children and innocent neighbors.” Oh poor baby! Then pay your rent. No one will show up at your door.
Wow! I kept waiting and waiting for the obligatory paragraph regarding the allegations that Tenant Kim pulled the exact same stay-without-pay routine on his last landlord, but that paragraph never came. I guess that’s not surprising, but it is disappointing.
Daily mail found that this con artist Kim before moved in Singhs house, lived in a different Bellevue house free for 2 years as well and was evicted. So looks like he is serial freeloader who likes to live in expensive houses in great neighborhoods for free and knows how to use system. And story how he rented car and never paid for it. With this history his is not a victim, he knows what his is doing and how to get what he wants for free. But gullible reporters believe in his stories , better worry about people who really need help.
1) Where’s the link to this allegation? 2) Ah yes, the Daily Mail, noted bastion of journalism with integrity.
This is almost exactly the same article as the one from this publication that attempted to smear Jason Roth (who only just recently finally recovered his home after years of dealing with a nonpaying former tenant/squatter). Just change the names and location and it reads the same. Go look up the Jason Roth article on this site and read it. Blow by blow its practically same thing.
The landlord’s bringing this up in the public eye is illegal, or unfair to the tenant. Tenant activists LOVE to expose bad landlords. It goes both ways, sorry. Besides, its hardly like they started there. It has been 2 years. The Singhs have even testified before house/senate over this situation. LONG before anybody even thought about making the squatters uncomfortable for a day in not-their-own-home. (PS, how many leftists have marched on the homes of their targets and had all kinds of justifications for it? Anybody we know? Anybody?)
In any case its gonna get worse as long as the courts fail to provide balanced and fair access to the courts for clear cut cases of nonpayment. This article claims exposing the tenant might be illegal doxxing, but then proceeds to smear the landlord by painting them as rich and overzealous. Good. Grief. The worse access to justice gets, the more “illegal” and desperate acts we are going to see from small housing providers. The big ones will just hire bigger lawyers. The small ones will be driven out of the market in even more numbers than already.
The tenant in this case has paid ZERO rent since their initial first and last rent payment on move in. ZERO. For two years. Thats a fact that is barely scratched on in this article. They received some assistance from HJP that covered part of their arrears as part of a prior attempt at negotiation. They still failed to resume paying after that. How long does it take to find another job, or move someplace cheaper if you can’t. Not. Two. Years.
The system is broken when it takes years to remove blantantly nonpaying tenant. The system is broken when loopholes and legal maneuvering can delay a legitimate eviction indefinitely. The system is broken when the courts and state favor one side over another. The system is broken when nobody wants to be a housing provider and those already in place are incentivised to quit in the middle of a housing, and rental housing availability, crisis.
12 months behind in the rent. ‘Nuff said
(a) Moving costs money (b) he might’ve been able to move to another neighborhood in his price range if there weren’t a bunch of highly publicized videos out there calling him a bad tenant
I bet he has plenty saved. Sell one of those two new cars. As for the publicizing making it harder to find a place, something about sleeping in the bed they made. I only feel sorry for the kid(s).
Sarah – yes, moving costs money. So? What is your point? He doesn’t have money – so he is free to take someone else’s money? Kim had an opportunity to move to another apartment or house for 18 months. He did not choose to move voluntarily – instead he chose to litigate. And now he is crying foul when his neighbors are pissed off?
This calls to mind the mob that showed up to clear a bunch of RVs on a side street in Lake Shitty, home of Bill Pierre’s
autoland empire, and how that went down. KIRO 7 has tossed it in the memory hole but a few nuggets have been preserved. This is where late stage capitalism and feudalism — its earliest form — collide.Its not ‘late stage’ capitalism. Its was refusal of the people in charge to recognize and act on the root problems. Failure to recognize that sadly SOME people don’t want help, but will gladly and endlessly take anything they can from you. That some people would rather live in a tent on the fringes and detritus of society with no responsibility at all rather than have the structure and responsibility of apartment, job, and taxes like most of us. Its endlessly growing restrictions, rules, and laws making it harder and less rewarding for the productive people to produce things and do beneficial things in order to throw resources at and make it “fairer” for the people that won’t contribute much, or are frankly a net negative; thus incentivizing more of that behavior. sorry, ECON 101 strikes again.
There’s a reason most tent/RV dwellers are /chronic/ homeless. its not lack of housing options. Its lack of their ability or desire to function in society. They have proliferated because we have allowed it. That’s starting to change since it has become more and more obvious that they won’t or can’t help themselves and need to be coerced into change.
Couple all that with frustrated land owners and residents dealing with the direct effects of having a high concentration of people living under those conditions around them, and yes we are going to see more and more ‘mobs’ trying anything they can – ultimately effective or not – to fix it.
For eight years I slept in various doorways and spent my days mostly at libraries. I actually held a seasonal job two winters of those years. Then someone who noticed me at one of those libraries organised a GoFundMe and I was able to get housing. I got work a few months later. Happily ever after, right?
Well, no. Despite two lucky breaks, one of which I can’t go back to and one of which I chose not to, I’ve discovered that, in general, and in particular for non-temporary jobs, nobody wants to hire someone whose skills are eight years out of date. I don’t even get screening interviews from churches (yes, plural) looking for part-time data entry help. I’ve been too disorganised to set up the usual cure for this kind of thing – going back to school. So at this point I’m quite likely to become homeless again soon.
But what the heck, during the past few years I’ve paid some taxes, and for 2023 even federal income tax. So I guess I’m both of the people you’re setting up as polar opposites, the kind who deal with the structure of job, housing and taxes, and the people who, you say, refuse to. Hey- if I’m a split personality, maybe I can get disability money!
Not sure why I can’t reply to @Joe Berstein directly.
Glad to hear you aren’t among those who aren’t even trying. Gotta ask though, if you can get seasonal work, whats stopping you from working year round? Why can you only get temp work? Or is that all you are looking for? Not expecting you to dump all your personal details and struggles on an internet forum, but having a job is one of the best legs up in getting a better one so you already have a leg up at least some of the time vs. others in your situation. And if you can’t find steady work doing data entry, look for something else. That is probably a declining profession for everybody. Unless its a really big church there is no way they are going to need that work year round. And in any case it feels like there are some details here that may more clearly explain the situation, if you had wanted to share.
Even in seattle, two people sharing a median rent 2br apartment each earning 32 hours minimum wage can afford the place. Even on 40 hours minimum wage, there’s gonna be a room you can rent someplace. Maybe it isn’t what you want but its gotta be better than sleeping rough.
If you are having trouble with screening to get into an apartment or shared space, you can blame all the tenant protection ordinances in the last 10 years for making it riskier for housing providers. The harder it is to remove somebody who isn’t working out, the more careful and/or paranoid housing providers are going to be on who they give the keys to in the first place.
That said, I’ve had people show up to apartment viewings drunk and high. I’ve had them say completely inappropriate things to the current resident and to other people looking. I’ve had them dump trash in the parking lot on their way up to look at the unit. I’ve had them trip over and knock over the current tenant’s furniture. I’ve been threatened if I didn’t let them move in. So this is all a great example of what NOT to do and I’m not suggesting you ever have. But when it comes time to interview for a unit, make your best impression. Be organized. Be up front.
‘Fair chance’ or not it matters and it will put you ahead of a lot of people.
While I hold to my opinion of what a LOT of the cause of chronic homelessness is I never suggested there aren’t people trying to get out of it. In any case good luck.
Katie – thanks for showing a different side of the story. But you still have not addressed the core issue. The finances of Singh do not matter – Kim has not paid his rent. Period. Not one month, not two months. He has not paid any rent after HJP’s help ended. That is not right. If he cannot afford $4000/month in rent, he needs to move to another neighborhood in his price range – that is what all of us do. Singh might have been over zealous – but the fact is that he must be paying the mortgage on his ‘investment’. After all, he is trying to run a “business” too. It cannot take 2 years for an eviction to happen. That should be the story.
So this person owns $$$ millions and millions through a whole shell game worth of LLCs, but is a “poor widdle landlord” who have no choice but to protest with far right figureheads. Amazing.
so he deserves to never get his house back, and pay for these people to live there forever?
Save Seattle – yes, he owns 2 or 3 or 4 homes. He owns millions of assets – and also has millions in mortgages. He is enterprising and is doing the right thing. I cannot see of even one justification for why the tenant should continue staying there. As soon as he realized that he does not have the money to pay the rent, he should have moved out. Or negotiated a payment plan – or could have volunteered to do any number of things. Instead it is his mistake that he finds himself at the brink of an eviction.
Btw, where did Housing Justice Project get its funding from? You are right – your tax money and mine. And Singh’s. Why should my tax money be used to pay the rent for a deadbeat litigant like Kim?