Santa wasn’t the only one showing up at this Florida home uninvited!
Mark and Kathy Hyatt, known for their annual “Hyatt Extreme Christmas” display in Plantation, Florida, have allegedly been outed as squatters who weren’t paying rent, taxes, or a mortgage for an estimated 15 years.
According to court documents, the Hyatt family has been ordered to pay $34,724.68 for seven years of neglected tax payments. The family was reportedly given a homestead exemption claiming that they were the owners of the home, which they were not.
The investigation goes back to 2013, as the statute of limitations only allows investigators to look back 10 years, with 2020-2022 still counting as a part of the investigation even though the display itself was not lit up during that time.
The display has not been up in 6 years as the couple divorced in 2017, and Mark Hyatt died in 2020.
During a deposition in September, Kathy Hyatt admitted that she and her then-husband broken into the Plantation home and changed the locks after making a fake deed claiming them the owners of the property after it was discovered that the then-owner Miami Dolphins player Brett Perriman was facing foreclosure and didn’t have a valid deed to the home.
“Well, we broke in,” Kathy Hyatt told investigators, per the New York Post. “I’ve never done that before in my life. We never paid any money to occupy. We were squatters.”
The home, which is located at 11201 NW 14th St., is currently listed on Google Maps as “Kathy Sells South Florida” — a real estate business that Kathy Hyatt runs.
On Zillow, the home is estimated to be worth $1.72 million.