A top Cantor Fitzgerald exec and his wife are refusing to vacate their tony Hamptons rental — and they are living like a “Hoarders’’ episode while exploiting special COVID-19 rules barring eviction, according to a lawsuit and sources.
Cantor’s “ultra-wealthy” Chief Administration Officer Paul Pion and his wife Stephanie shelled out $10,000 a month for the past two years to rent the $5 million property in exclusive Water Mill, according to papers filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court.
But the couple’s lease expired May 31, and the Long Island home’s owner found a new buyer set to close on the deal Tuesday — yet the Pions refuse to vacate the premises, the document says.
“They aren’t leaving, and it looks like an episode of ‘Hoarders,’ ” said a source familiar with the situation, referring to the TV series about people who collect mounds of things.
“I don’t understand. They have money,” the source said. “The owner filed a lawsuit but can’t evict them because of COVID. That makes sense if you don’t have money. But the Hamptons market is hot, and there are plenty of properties to rent or buy.”
The well-heeled tenants are instead using “shifty means’’ to remain in the home, which has taken a beating from their “high attendance parties,’’ the papers say.
“Defendants are conducting themselves in a bad faith, dishonest and manipulative way to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic and the mass confusion and gridlock in the lower courts in an effort to, among other things, block the impending sale of the Premises,’’ the suit says.
The state legislature last month approved an extension of New York’s eviction moratorium on tenants who can prove a financial or medical “hardship’’ from the coronavirus if they had to move. The measure now offers such tenants protection from eviction through Aug. 31.
But “the COVID-19 pandemic has no bearing here since defendants have suffered no financial hardship from it,’’ the lawsuit says, adding that the pair has a Manhattan pad they can always use.
Paul Pion told The Post by phone Tuesday that the suit’s claims are “completely false.”
The Pions once expressed an interest in buying the property, the source said.
But they never made a move to purchase it — and instead became “an intolerable nuisance,’’ the documents say.
There’s the property damage they caused “due to unauthorized alterations, misuse and overuse of the household systems and lack of routine maintenance,’’ including involving the cesspool, states the suit, which was filed Friday.
The tenants also refused to allow potential buyers to tour the home — and even removed the lawn sign announcing it was “IN CONTRACT’’ immediately after it went up, the documents allege.
When a financial lender was finally let in to appraise the home, the expert told “the broker that the house was a mess, and the occupant was crazy,’’ the suit says.
Now the owner fears that the buyer will back out of the deal if the Pions aren’t booted — and fast, the papers say.
The home “has now gone to contract for sale with a buyer (the “Buyer”) for a sale price of $4,970,000.00 scheduled to close on June 15, 2021 which is now in jeopardy,” the suit says.