It’s a tale so byzantine as to defy belief, a neighbors’ dispute run terribly amok, replete with allegations of fraud, false identity, extortion, harassment and squatting — all enabled by the anonymity of arranging a rental via Airbnb.

A Telegraph Hill resident who was squabbling with his building co-owners allegedly duped them into renting him their unit by using a false identity on Airbnb, according to a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court. Then, after two months in the apartment, he claimed he qualified for tenants’ rights and said he planned to stay indefinitely.

Michelle Huang owns a two-bedroom tenancy-in-common unit in a “spectacular location” on Telegraph Hill near Coit Tower, a few blocks from the apartment where she lives with her boyfriend, Thomas Payne. She and Payne allege that Sandeep Andre Hingorani, a fellow co-owner in the six-unit TIC property and a man with whom they’ve battled for years, concocted an ersatz profile on Airbnb, calling himself “Jim Tako” to trick them into renting the unit for 60 days to him and his associates.

No personal contact

During the rental in April and May, Huang and Payne never met Tako; all their in-person interactions were with one of his associates. When the two months were almost up, to their “shock and horror,” an attorney informed them that Hingorani was their tenant and that he and his associates were asserting the right to convert their stay into an ongoing month-to-month tenancy.

Why would anyone go to such lengths? In court papers, Payne and Huang sought to explain. “Defendants’ reprehensible actions were intentionally calculated to cause plaintiffs severe emotional distress,” says their case against Hingorani and his associates for fraud, trespass and ejectment. “In particular, defendant Sandeep stated that he intended to drive plaintiffs from their property and to ‘inflict maximum pain’ upon them.”

But Hingorani says they have him all wrong. He had no malicious intent; he just needed a place to stay while he did major construction work on his own studio unit in the same building, he said. The other two tenants — his friend Piper Davis and his elderly mother, Ursula Josefa Hingorani — also needed a place to stay.

“This was convenient,” he said. “You couldn’t have it be more convenient.”

Why didn’t he tell his fellow TIC owners that he had rented their unit via Airbnb? He doesn’t have a clear answer and declined to respond to any questions about Jim Tako. And why wouldn’t he leave? Even after his unit was rehabbed, it’s too small for three people, he said. And he believes in his legal rights. Payne and Huang “would like to change the rent ordinance to have 60-day rentals and be able to kick people out; that’s just not what the law is,” he said.

But he has a raft of allegations of his own against Payne and Huang, including harassment, creating unsafe living conditions, doing major construction without permits and seeking to violate rent control. In fact, he said, it is the couple who are pursuing a vendetta seeking to drive him out of the property altogether.

“I’m being forced out of the rental unit. I’m being forced to sell my own studio,” he said.

‘Constructive eviction’

Hingorani, his mother and Davis lived in the disputed unit for more than 10 months and won Rent Board validation of their tenancy. But Thursday, they gave notice that they were moving out because of “constructive eviction” — illegal actions by a landlord that make a property uninhabitable. Their attorney said the electricity had been shut off and that the landlords, repair people and city inspectors often entered the unit without proper notice.

The case exposes potential pitfalls of the gig economy, where websites facilitate interactions between strangers. Airbnb guests are supposed to be vetted through reviews from other users. Some apply for “verified ID” by scanning in documents such as photo IDs and linking to social media profiles. The profile of “Jim Tako,” which featured a photograph of actor Don Johnson, did not have any reviews, Payne said, although underneath “Tako’s” Airbnb messages are the words “5 Verifications; 1 Review.” Hingorani later testified that he paid the Airbnb rent with his credit card, meaning Airbnb failed to flag that “Jim Tako” lacked a credit card in his name.

“Unfortunate situations like this are rare and we are always working to improve,” Airbnb said in a statement. “We provide tools so that our hosts can review and research their guests before they accept a reservation. You can read a person’s profile, look for their reviews.”

Exposing gaps

The situation also reveals a catch-22 created by San Francisco’s new laws regulating short-term rentals. Entire-home rentals are limited to 90 days a year and must be occupied by a permanent resident. Huang switched to rentals of 30 days or more because those are legal. That’s a decision that other local landlords have also made. But by requiring longer stays, landlords run the risk of the temporary visitors gaining permanent renters’ rights.

And finally, the conflict lays bare a downside of tenancies in common, a popular real estate approach in San Francisco in which strangers join forces to buy a multiunit building with each occupying a unit but sharing finances and upkeep.

A group of five people purchased the run-down 1908 six-unit Edwardian building as a TIC in 2012. Payne bought two units; Huang bought one. Hingorani — whom they did not know — bought a top-floor studio. The other two owners were already living there as renters.

Almost immediately Payne and Huang clashed with Hingorani over finances and building repairs. They say that resulted in his extreme hostility toward them. But Hingorani says he does not bear them ill will, although he characterized them as bullies who are difficult to do business with.

Payne and Huang proceeded to rent two of their units via Airbnb and Flipkey to travelers (the third was so dilapidated that it was uninhabitable). That fueled another conflict with Hingorani, who said the stream of visitors generated noise, consumed parking and threatened security, and he charged that they were neglecting the units’ upkeep. Hingorani complained to the city about the illegal short-term rentals. Payne and Huang then switched to rentals of 30 days or more.

Trusting Airbnb

Last year they arranged a two-month Airbnb rental starting April 1 to a man identifying himself as Jim Tako, a traveling correspondent for a Pittsburgh TV station who said he would share it with colleagues.

Payne and Huang asked the group to sign a lease and rental application, characterizing that as a formality. It was returned to them identifying the prospective renters as Jim Tako, Piper Davis, Ursula Josefa (omitting the surname of Sandeep’s mother) and Andre with an illegible last name.

In later testimony, Hingorani said he frequently uses his middle name of Andre, something that Huang and Payne said they didn’t know. Hingorani said he provided his correct Social Security number on the forms, as well as the address of a property he has in San Diego, implying that the landlords could have discovered his identity with a little research.

Payne says they didn’t feel obligated to vet the tenants because they were relying on Airbnb as a middleman. “We put a lot of trust in Airbnb,” he said.

During the tenancy, all the landlords’ face-to-face interactions were with Davis, who did not return requests for comment. (Hingorani’s mother suffers from dementia, so she was not contacted for comment.) A few days before the two months were up, the couple received a letter from an attorney that sent their stomachs churning. That’s how they discovered that they’d unwittingly rented to a man they considered an “implacable opponent” and that he now intended to remain their tenant.

Modifications cited

In another twist, a day after signing the lease, Huang said she discovered that the Airbnb renters had made numerous modifications to the document without flagging them — including knocking more than $1,000 off the monthly rent. The rent set via Airbnb was $4,382 a month, but the amount was left blank in the lease. Huang sent a revised lease to the tenants with the correct amount but never heard back; meanwhile Airbnb remitted the original, larger amount for April and May.

After a Rent Board hearing, an administrative law judge ruled that Hingorani, Davis and Hingorani’s mother were entitled to tenants’ protections under San Francisco’s rent ordinance based on having occupied the unit for more than 32 continuous days. The decision sidestepped the issue of how the three originally took possession of the unit, although it said that Hingorani’s testimony about Jim Tako “was not credible.”

The tenants testified to the Rent Board that they wrote in a rent payment — $3,256 a month — on the lease that they felt “was fair” and argued that amount should stand because all parties had signed the agreement. The judge upheld the original rent of $4,382 set via Airbnb but agreed with Hingorani’s contention that the unit suffered from major defects in the heating and electric systems and reduced the rent by $360 a month to compensate. He also granted previous rent reductions for some other problems that had been fixed.

Escrow account

Huang and Payne refuse to accept rent, not wanting to legitimize the tenancy. Instead it is being deposited in an escrow account pending a final appeal of the Rent Board decision. The court case — which now includes a cross-complaint filed by Hingorani et al. — is on hold until that final Rent Board ruling.

Dennis Wishnie, a retired attorney who is one of the TIC co-owners, says he has tried to stay neutral during the long-running feud between his fellow owners. The fifth owner was not available to comment.

“It’s the Hatfields and McCoys, but unfortunately we live under the same roof,” he said. “It’s very stressful. I just want peace.”

He chooses his words carefully in discussing the current imbroglio.

“It was inappropriate how (Hingorani) got in that unit,” he said. “But I think there’s enough wrong on both sides that the only ones who are going to benefit from this are the lawyers. It’s a pox on both their houses.”

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid