A woman whose Queens home was allegedly stolen by a scheming squatter says her nightmare never would have happened if bone-headed city bureaucrats hadn’t given him a fraudulent deed — and now she wants the city to pay up, court papers show.

Jennifer Merin, 71, is seeking nearly $600,000 for the debacle, including the $400,000 in property that ex-con Darrell Beatty stole from her family home while living there, her Manhattan Supreme Court suit says.

“[The city] was negligent in the way in which they allowed the deed to be registered,” a bitter Merin told The Post on Friday. “There was no indication that any of those signatures were related to my family or the property.”

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He may soon be living for free ­behind bars.

The ex-con who allegedly filed a fake deed to steal an elderly woman’s Queens home was arrested Tuesday in Housing Court, where he was brazenly fighting eviction.

Darrell Beatty, 49, was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property for allegedly illegally transferring the deed of a Laurelton home into his name and moving in with his two sons.

The Post on Sunday reported the alleged scheme, which could send Beatty to prison for more than 15 years.

It was sweet relief for Jennifer Merin, whose family bought the house in 1930.

“I heard the words, ‘You’re under arrest,’ and I [thought], ‘Thank God,’ ” said Merin, who saw sheriffs take Beatty into custody in a hallway.

“I think I almost fainted with joy at that moment. I have really been waiting to hear those words for so long. I hope he is put away for a long time.”

Beatty allegedly filed a deed transfer in March listing himself as the owner of the three-bedroom ­Tudor, which had been empty for a decade with Merin living in Manhattan, prosecutors said Tuesday.

He listed the previous owner as Edith Moore, but nobody by that name has ever owned the property, said Queens DA Richard Brown.

Merin still had many of her family’s prized possessions in the home, which Beatty piled up in a heap in the garage.

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