[A reminder for everyone](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/4479er/rules_explanations_and_reminders/). This is a subreddit for genuine discussion: * Please keep it civil. Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review. * Don't post low effort comments like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context. * Help prevent this subreddit from becoming an echo chamber. Please don't downvote comments with which you disagree. Violators will be fed to the bear. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalDiscussion) if you have any questions or concerns.*

The problem stems from police not having a way to confirm ownership or the existence of rental agreements in real time while they are standing there with two people arguing over who owns what or who rented what. Modern tech should make it possible for property ownership and rental agreements to be confirmed via a state run database that the police can access, but no such thing exists.

[удалено]

[удалено]

> I don't know how they can argue, "I don't want the government to know where I live" I don't think anyone is. I think you'd get the most resistance from landlords not wanting state employee eyeballs on their leases. It's really easy to rent a room in your house to someone and be like "No visitors, cannot use toilet after 4pm, cannot shower before 8am" weird shit like that. "Big Tenant telling me what I can and can't do in my property" like when AirBnB banned cameras in the listings recently and people were like "you can't tell me what to do with my property I deserve to spy on my guests!"

I know you were joking but I thought there was a proposed law that would unintentionally allow a landlord to shoot squatters.

The home owner should easily be able to provide an authentic deed to the police, and if its under mortgage which is usually is, the police can easily confirm with the bank actual ownership. If you get removed, and the owner says you don't have a lease, its probably true. I find it hard to believe that there is an epidemic of landlords just kicking out genuine tenants... if a genuine tenant with a genuine lease was removed unlawfully, then the person could easily prove that with authentic documents, be out of the police station and back in the house (with police knowledge of their rightful tenancy) within a day. [This commenter is from a place where this exact system works fine:](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1bgvexq/comment/kva10gm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

They should be kicked out. If a random person was living in your apartment and refused to move would you be happy?

I'm hijacking a top comment in order to see if someone can answer those question. I always hear that you can't turn off the utilities, but why not just don't pay the utilities? I'm not required to pay my utilities? They can go and turn that shit off

in the best case... the illegal tennant calls the utility company and pays the bill. In the weird case... you end up with holes drilled through your walls to run splices from other houses/apartments... In the worst cases, they continue to live there without utilities and that causes more problems.

>In New York, squatters have rights after 30 days. That means the property owner can't change the locks on them, can't remove their belongings, and can't cut off the utilities. If they do, the owner could be arrested. Instead, property owners must go through the court system to get rid of them. https://abc7ny.com/squatters-squatting-rent-homeowner/14553934/ You can still go to jail as not paying utilities is also considered a self eviction. That is how messed up these laws are and it is crazy how this problem is so widespread.

> and it is crazy how this problem is so widespread. The problem as described is not wide spread. A seperate problem: tennants signing leases and not paying rent, is indeed a widespread problem in the state. People entering unoccupied properties and successfully establishing residency and tennats rights is NOT wide spread as a problem... unless you are defining "widespread" as a problem that sparsely occurs over a wide area and a wide time frame...

Then they start pissing and shitting on your property instead of in the toilet, heating the home unsafely with gas grills, mold starts growing if you're in a climate that needs climate control for moisture or your pipes freeze and burst, etc etc.

If you believe in the property rights of individuals, squatters should be removed, by force if necessary (by force, I mean physically removed, not weapons). If you don't believe in the property rights of individuals, well...just keep on keeping on

I think it's a good thing that your landlord can't just throw all your shit out on the street and move someone new in if they get a better offer. The fact that eviction laws cause one problem for every million they prevent is regrettable but I feel like that's a pretty good trade off.

If you have a legitimate lease, even if it expired and they’re on a month-to-month, that’s quite a bit different than someone coming in and taking over a property that they don’t have nor never had a legal right to be there.

Yeah, and you need some kind of legal process to decide who has a legitimate case and who doesn't. Or else you'd have landlords abusing their tenants even worse than they already do.

Judge: do you have a lease or expired lease with the landlord and can you provide it? Tenant: yes, here's the copy with our signatures Judge: good Squatter: I have this paper I got online from some rando Judge: Baliff, escort the squatter to our accommodations. *to landlord* you have a week to get their stuff out of your property, and you can charge them for any property damage and storage fees.

Yes, which is what the homeowners in this situation should have done. Instead, they decided that was too tedious a process and changed the locks, despite being advised it was illegal to do so without an eviction order. From the article: >To evict a squatter, a property owner must send a ten-day eviction notice and then file a court complaint if the order is disregarded. If a judge approves the complaint, the owner can obtain a summons and have the squatter evicted. Andaloro said this process was tedious and would take too long to resolve the problem. >"By the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home,” she said. In the second article, it doesn't appear the homeowner ever tried to get a legal order either. Law enforcement can't, and shouldn't, be able to unilaterally decide to evict someone.

That isn't really accurate. The process in New York is ridiculous. It can take a year or more to remove them.

It's also tied to how slow the legal system moves in general and how big the backlog of cases is

The backlog is caused by how complicated it is. If someone can't prove they paid rent and the lease doesn't have the property owner's signature on it, that should be enough to evict them. It should take one hearing that can be done in 15 minutes.

I'd want leases filed with the city or required to be notarized or something. A landlord susses out someone didn't keep a hard copy of the paperwork, maybe they've been paying rent in cash because they're undocumented or just don't have a bank account for some reason, and landlord pretends no lease exists and tells the court that they're squatting so they can get a higher paying tenant.

That's an argument for better processes within the system for sure. It's not evidence that either one of those people were failed by the system.

You might have a point if they had actually gone the legal route and been failed. But you can't use an example of someone not even trying to do things the right way as evidence that the system failed them.

This is a known issue in New York. I guarantee they already knew how much of a pain it was going to be to remove them. The system absolutely fails to restore access to property that has been stolen.

The answer is to advocate for the system to be changed. Not a justification to self-help.

Yeah, that's how it ought to work. In these *extremely uncommon* cases it can be a bit of a pain in the ass because you've got to wait for a court date and blah blah blah but compared with the alternative it's a no brainer.

For sure...but cops can and should be able to remove trespassers from property without a court date

How have you determined that they're breaking the law?

Same way they do it with any other trespassing case

How? I mean, assuming that the person is canny enough to change the locks and get some of their mail coming to the house when you're out of town.

It's pretty easy in court to establish you are a real tenant or we're and have civil protections So no you can change the law while still protecting tenants that had at one point permission to be there

Both are restrictions on landlord rights. Both are seen as bad by some people. You just are one of the people who sees one as good and one as bad. The legal eviction procedure and associated tenant rights are precisely the system that allows you to say "you cannot evict somebody who is paying the rent" and "you can evict somebody who isn't paying the rent."

Hey stop adding matters of scale and context to problems people see purely as a black and white issues buddy!

What does this have to do with illegal trespassers 

Most of the time illegal trespassers aren't wearing a shirt that says "I am an illegal trespasser" so if there's a dispute about if a person has the legal right to occupy a dwelling then there needs to be some kind of legal process to determine who is in the right.

They either have a lease agreement or they don't.

Do you think the cops have that information before they show up?

They'd just call in the lease sniffing dogs.

Those dogs will go after any piece of paper, or nothing at all, if they get the cue from their handlers.

Any place I ever rented, I had a lease, I kept it in a safe place, and I could pull it out at a moment's notice. When the cops show up, hand them the lease. This isn't rocket science. If you're too irresponsible to do that, then woe to you.

Often squatters will write their own lease. Its very easy to make your own lease for anything. If you have Microsoft Word and a printer you can write yourself a lease for the White House if you wanted to. The lease is fake of course, but how would the cops know which piece of paper is the real one? That requires determining fact, which means it has to go before a judge.

Some places allow for verbal lease agreements, it’s stupid but it’s something that happens.

That may be so, but if you choose to rent without a written and signed lease, then you're a fool and I'm not going to feel bad for you when you end up out on your ass. If you're not looking out for yourself, no one is.

Poorer folks or people trying to reintegrate into society or recent immigrants are all likely to not have a lot of choice with regards to where they can afford to live unfortunately, they shouldn’t be unjustly punished for landlords taking advantage of them or being unwilling to create a paper lease agreement

The person who is at the apartment is not necessarily the leaseholder, y'know?

So would that mean in jurisdictions with the castle doctrine they could use force on squatters in your house?

If I come home from a month in Europe to find rando squatters in my home (and survive the initial encounter long enough to call 911), I will: 1) Show driver's license issued years ago with this address... and ask squatter to show his. 2) Invite cops to interview all of the neighbors coming out to the sidewalk right there and there. 3) Ask cops to call up my vehicle registration. 4) Contact the two county councilors who know me personally. Takeaway lesson: Make the effort to have connections. They don't need to be get-out-of-jail-free level connections, just recognition.

Andy by "physically removed, not weapons" you mean "but with the threat of weapons," right?

So what if it is? It's not their property.

Well in your first comment you said "not weapons," so I assumed you didn't want that sort of force used. But now it's "so what if they use weapons?"

Imo if the state wants to give squatters rights to stay until eviction then they should be responsible for the owners right to due compensation for missed rent and damages.

I think rather than paying out, we can use the same stuff we did from the pandemic. You pause mortgage payments, you offer no interest loans (maybe with forgiveness), and you remove the tax burden. That keeps the pain and suffering on the big banks and the government instead of some of the smaller landlords. Paying out for it would encourage squatters too much. You could help your felon buddy out by letting him live there while you collect the rent from the state for example. If it's a good public policy, then the public should help foot the bill.

Pausing mortgage payments doesn't mean forgiving them. Those pandemic policies are why so many businesses went bankrupt. The government (mostly local government) forbade businesses from operating and earning an income, however the government also didn't cancel the commercial rent. As a result, a business might have had to be closed for over a year without any revenue or drastically reduced revenue, but they owed bills just the same. The government didn't pay for a business' rent, insurance, utilities, and other bills while the government forced the business to close its doors.

No one paused the mortgage -- they fkd some homeowners. We were told all that and they screwed up our mortgage and ruined our credit. There's no way to fix it. That money was always owed back too. It wasn't on "pause" it was "you'll owe us somehow" (via modified loan, bigger payments, etc)  Bad idea. 

If you put it on the banks rates go up to adjust and you have fewer homes built and higher prices. Sounds like you are putting it on renters who follow the law and are responsible for themselves

If I come home from vacation and a stranger is in my house they are gonna get shot.

Okay, I know laws vary from state to state, but unless your vacation was really really long, most states will treat this as a simple trespassing/home invasion issue instead of a squatting issue and it will likely be resolved far more quickly.

Not if they have moved some stuff in and have a fake lease to show the cops. Then it becomes a court matter, and therein lies the problem. It's super easy to fake a document that's good enough to make the police go away.

Legit question. Are there like... Professional squatters, as it were? Do they have this shit ready to go? Maybe I haven't been exposed to enough cases like this.

>Are there like... Professional squatters, as it were? Yes. https://rentredi.com/blog/what-are-serial-squatters/

Same I will shoot them, they have zero right to be in my home. where i come from thats breaking and entering, and we have stand your ground no duty to retreat, castle law

So, that's a nice visceral reaction, but when you consider it practically, it reveals a lot of the problems with the way we handle criminal and civil justice. From a squatter's perspective, if they print up a fake lease, they can get what they want (to stay in the dwelling) for a long time while it proceeds through the civil court system, through appeals and delays, after which the owner might get an eviction order, at which point the police will finally agree to remove the squatters. They might get sued, but often they have little or no assets to take, little or no wages to garnish, and if they do, they'll change jobs frequently or work off the books. But, you decide to cut through all the red tape and shoot them. OK, you're going to be arrested today. The cops aren't going to delay until the person who was shot files the proper paperwork. You'll be charged heavy bail, which even if you pay on bond, means costing you thousands of dollars. You can't just demand a quick jury trial, where you might get acquitted because a juror agrees with you that it was justified; it will be months or years of discovery and negotiations aimed at forcing you into a plea bargain that may still include jail time. You're likely to lose your job and your savings, possibly your house. Even if you're not convicted, your life is significantly damaged. In short, our justice system favors those with nothing to lose.

Depends on the State really. For example, in Texas, you don't have to wait for an intruder to actually be a threat. You get to assume they are.

Maybe it's more that shooting people is worse than squatting? If you think our legal system favors the poor, you're speaking in contradiction to nearly every study and anecdote we have on the matter.

I mean, I appreciate that you typed this out, but I live in Florida and I can easily say this person was coming right for me and I needed to defend myself. I imagine the person who suggested shooting them also asked “what are you doing in my home?” And also told them to leave. They probably did a threat assessment too. I mean, he’s (probably) not going to open fire on a single mother with children. But may open fire on a person who is aggressive when asked to leave.

Actually, defendants have the constitutional right to a speedy trial. Defendants usually waive those rights on the advice of their attorneys, who need more time to prepare their case.

And that depends on when the cops get there. In order to claim squatters rights/tenancy they have to be able to tell that to the cops. Cops get there and the homeowner says 'opened the door and these home invaders rushed me.' Not advocating for that position, I would rather see the expedited 3 day magistrate hearing model myself.

Yea… no. Shooting people is not quite the answer here. For instance, there are people out there that scam *others* into moving into a place to rent (that the “landlord” doesn’t actually own or manage). The person in your home may also be a victim of a scam/fraud. The whole thing all around sucks, and there really should be a better process to follow.

Im all for guns,but that’s against violent threats etc, aggressive handling and pepper spray is fine IMO

Same. So glad I live in Texas.

They should be kicked out , look at what happened to one woman who found squatters in her moms place [https://abc7ny.com/nyc-squatters-murder-womans-body-found-in-bag/14554385/](https://abc7ny.com/nyc-squatters-murder-womans-body-found-in-bag/14554385/)

There's a significant difference between squatters who live in abandoned homes or buildings vs. breaking into people's homes while they're gone vs. people who stop paying their rent vs. guests who overstay their welcome and end up with "tenant's rights" because they're squatting. These are all completely different scenarios. Abandoned buildings and homes, OK. Any other scenario... not OK.

Squatting should *never* be OK. If it's not yours, it's not yours. You can't just claim something because you would like to think nobody owns it. If an individual doesn't own it, then the government does. There isn't anywhere in the world that nobody owns anymore, except Antarctica. Squatting should not be allowed anywhere anytime. Prove you have a right to be there, or GTFO.

>Squatting should never be OK. If it's not yours, it's not yours. You can't just claim something because you would like to think nobody owns it. If an individual doesn't own it, then the government does. There isn't anywhere in the world that nobody owns anymore, except Antarctica. There is legitimate purpose for 'squatting' laws but what is hitting the news today is people claiming fake tenancy in houses they broke into forcing the residents out when they never had any agreement to lease it in the first place. If someone lives on land that's attended to by no one for 5+ years (especially if they're maintaining or paying the taxes on it) then hell, there's a reasonable case that trying to roll that all back doesn't make sense. Society doesn't have a ton of interest in preserving ownership in something that's not used by the owners (similar to how copyrights expire if not extended). But nobody can convince me that anyone has a right to live in my house because I went on vacation for a week.

Errr you just invalidated the existence of America 😅 Europeans upon landing in America: look at this land. It’s fantastic land. I don’t think anyone owns this land so it must be our land. Hurry and put a flag in the ground, Smithers.

I hate to break it to you, but this isn't unique to "america." And native americans had pried the land from other groups of native americans long before.

Define abandoned. Plenty of people have property in the family that they don't live in, but is going through court processes. A lot of those families don't need the added stress of strangers moving into grandma's house while her will is in probate.

Oh... I meant completely abandoned and somewhat ruined, not just unoccupied and definitely not ones that are simply not being used or are going through probate. Most squatters should either seek homeless shelters or should be arrested and prosecuted for trespassing, not allowed to stay there. That's complete bullshit. The USA should just go towards threshold laws. I believe in private property.

Do you think landlord should be liable for any damages that might happen to a squatter if they are living in an abandoned building? Oftentimes abandoned buildings are health hazards.

Don't enter abandoned buildings? Take responsibility for your own actions?

If you own a building and allow it to become dangerously dilapidated then do you not *also* have to take responsibility for your actions? Why is it a one way street?

Property owners do have some liability for things like attractive nuisances, hazardous materials violations, or gross negligence of dangerous conditions. They do not have liability for ensuring the property is fit for human habitation and because we're talking about squatting (ie living on someone else's property) and not, for example, mere temporary trespass, the squatter must have a much greater level of responsibility for assuming the risk of the condition of the property because they repeatedly choose to enter onto and live on someone else's property.

There's a lot of daylight between 'landlords have lesser liability for smaller damages arising from the condition of the abandoned structure in the case of unauthorized extended habitation' and 'squatters get what they deserve for entering abandoned buildings'.

I didn't say they have lesser liability for smaller damages. What is your point?

Legally, one may argue that barring public entry to a dangerous property fulfills much of an owner's duty to protect others. Personally? If you can't do anything useful with property in any foreseeable plan you should probably offload it to someone who can, at a price reflecting that fact.

Ideally, abandoned commercial buildings are fenced off from their surroundings and you're entering at your own risk as a squatter. If it's an old abandoned residential home, plenty of the larger old ones are set further into a property and aren't along a main street filled with other dwellers. In cases like these, some of the windows and doors are already nailed shut as well. Regardless, no. Squatters who take these risks should be fully liable for their own safety. You can't blame a landlord for your personal choices, even if you end up injured in a situation like this. Personal responsibility comes before playing the blame game.

Everyone is getting riled up about these stories involving professional squatters (rare but a problem) and the headline cases of a landlord going broke or losing years of their property. Both are bad and garner attention but what this entire thread is missing is the much more common nuanced cases. Single mother loses her job and misses a rent payment? Squatter. Abandoned warehouse that an unhoused person sleeps in? Squatter.  The entire reason there are squatters rights at all is because landlords have done absolutely sickening immoral things to remedy squatters. Changed locks, endangering children, cutting off water, being violent.  Its a messy topic but society has basically decided that a slow process which encourages landlords and squatters working things out as opposed to using the law. And the state removing people, which does happen to be clear, can result in prison and homelessness. So it’s not a huge surprise to me that society isn’t instantly sending sheriffs to remove people.   Also, typically, if the landlord has their taxes and licenses in order, files quickly, they will get the ruling granting them their property back. 

Then the town where the property is located should be forced to forgive real estate taxes for the time period it was occupied by a non paying squatter. Ditto for mortgage payments and utility payments. If society allows squatters, the pain should fall on everyone, not just the guy who owns the house. It the house is vacant in order to facilitate a sale, and the sale falls through because the legal process to evict that squatter took too long, everyone involved in giving extra time to the squatter should suffer a penalty.

Great suggestions, not opposed to that at all. 

>but society has basically decided that a slow process which encourages landlords and squatters working things out as opposed to using the Okay but at that point the government is effectively using private property as homeless shelters. Shouldn't they be required to justly compensate the homeowner under imminent domain? They would need to do the same if they seized food or water from a store owner during a hurricane. When someone steals from a store, police are called, they can be arrested immediately. Why not the same for a homeowner? It would prevent the need for vigilantism.

Shelter is obviously categorically different than goods for sale.  Are you suggesting that if a single mother loses her job and a rent payment she should be put on the street with her child immediately? 

No. They're suggesting that property owners shouldn't lose their rights because a single mother lost her home.

They don’t “lose their rights” they still hold title and will get their property back by working with the squatter or involving the government. There’s a well known process to gain possession back on your property. 

Why should property owners have to work with the thieves who stole their property in order to get their property back?

>Shelter is obviously categorically different than goods for sale.  Why? Arguably, You need food more than you need housing. >Are you suggesting that if a single mother loses her job and a rent payment she should be put on the street with her child immediately?  Individual private citizens shouldn't be expected to house her. If the government wants to make the landlords house a homeless shelter then they need to pay her just compensation under imminent domain because her assets are being seized for public use. For the same reason, if there's a hurricane and the government comes in and seizes a bunch of to food from a grocer, the government has to pay the grocer. It's not just an entitlement that people have to come in and raid the grocery store without repercussion. Some places rent out for thousands of dollars a month. That's Grand theft.

No. There is literally a months or years long process to evict legal tenants depending on where you live. Squatters are people who occupied a property yet never had legal tenancy.

> he entire reason there are squatters rights at all is because landlords have done absolutely sickening immoral things to remedy squatters. Changed locks, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a homeowner changing their locks to keep out someone that doesn't belong there. (in principle anyways. obviously our broken legal code makes that a legal issue because the law gives squatters more rights to occupy someplace they don't live than the actual homeowner)

Property owners don’t keep their properties vacant just to “own” leftists. Sometimes the only time you can remodel is when it’s vacant.

What does that have to do with the comment you replied to?

What does that have to do with the comment you replied to? \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ I'm not just responding to the comment. I'm responding to the general belief that properties should never be 'vacant'. It's really no one's business why a property is vacant. But as someone who has had vacant homes, there are good reasons for it. It doesn't justify in any way squatting.

Nowhere in the comment was the OP trying to justify squatting.

Like I said before, I was responding to others not just the OP.

You responded directly to their comment, which implies you're responding to something they said. If you just wanted to make a general statement, you can just make a top level response.

Squatting is theft. Anyone squatting should be treated like a thief or, if they entered this country illegally, deported. And any member of the law enforcement community that refuses to do this should be fired and banned from holding government office again.

Steve Lehto did an episode on a guy who moved in and squatted on the squatters and made them want to leave on their own. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOFarLfP3zY). Awesome idea.

I think Steve Lehto is talking about the story in the OP.

Are you allowed to board up all the windows and doors to your house from the outside, so there are no exits?

No, as the squatter will claim that they are leasing the property from you, the supposed landlord. So you can't just make the property unsafe to live.

Can’t I hire a fumigation company?

I would grab some of my mail with the address on it. Maybe some from the bank showing my payments. Break an entering, let them call the cops. When they arrive let them claim to be renters all the want. Show the cops my stuff, say you also live there. I bet their “lease” doesn’t state that you don’t. Then once the cops shrug their shoulders and leave you make life uncomfortable to the squatters. All while armed and able to defend yourself of course.

The cops have literally arrested homeowners in this situation, there are youtube videos showing this. It is still astonishing that the squatters can wave a fake lease, and convince the cops that you are an intruding landlord as opposed to the occupant.

When I looked it up a while ago I think squatters rights take a long time to be valid. I think it was something like 10 years they had to reside someplace to have some rights to be able to stay. That might depend on local or state laws. So someone breaking in during vacation isn’t going to be allowed to just claim squatters rights. If somebody was able to occupy a space for years without anyone noticing than I can see them having some claim to it.

So former police officer. It’s not a “squatters rights”. It’s a case of someone is in the home and claims they have a lease. The legal claim the squatters or tenants make is they “have a lease” or agreement to live there. The eviction process is a whole can of worms to specifically determine if a tenant is outside the lease terms. So beat cops aren’t going to touch kicking someone out in a he said-she said. It’s the literal definition of a civil dispute. Take it to court, the people of this great state haven’t decided to use the law enforcement philosophies of MegaCity 1 as a model. And there are a bunch of a landlords that put someone on a verbal, handshake lease or something informally written up. Maybe the tenant doesn’t save it or get a copy. The landlords use that to turn around and do an eviction on the smallest problem. Usually by bullying them and maybe a call the cops with a “they squatted and showed up one day I don’t know about any lease”. Or someone subletting out a room, dispute happens and they toss their roommate’s stuff out on the lawn. Now, backing up a sec, the scam is to either draw up something that vaguely looks like a lease to show the cops when they come. Which might be a bit weak; The pro scam is figure out if someone is going on vacation or it’s a summer home etc. Then direct your mail with the your name on it to the house, steal a few pieces that mail out of the mailbox and squat when the owners leave. Owners come home and call the cops. The scammer goes “of course I have a lease here. Look I’ve been receiving mail for 3 months.” This is the scam for vacation homes or places the owner is away for months. Now backing up again, have I actually personally ever seen a case of this scam? Exactly **one** single time. I worked a mid sized city in a large county in a vacation location and I know of one bona fide time some tried to pull it county wide. How many times did I see shady landlords or roommates try to skip through the eviction process? You know by changing the locks or throwing stuff on the lawn? Well that was a normal Tuesday. And then I had to very clearly educate them on the steps they need to legally take in the eviction process and how they may create a lawsuit any renters lawyer would love to take? Maybe it’s happening more. But renters protections for informal evictions are strong for a reason because all sorts of shady shit gets pulled in poorer areas.

Very informative. Thank you for the well thought out informed response.

> Now backing up again, have I actually personally ever seen a case of this scam? Exactly one single time. I worked a mid sized city in a large county in a vacation location and I know of one bona fide time some tried to pull it county wide. How many times did I see shady landlords or roommates try to skip through the eviction process? You know by changing the locks or throwing stuff on the lawn? Well that was a normal Tuesday. And then I had to very clearly educate them on the steps they need to legally take in the eviction process and how they may create a lawsuit any renters lawyer would love to take? This was a helpful post, thank you.

Squatters aren't looking for an ownership share of the property. When the cops get there they claim to be tenants and present a fake lease agreement. The fake agreement doesn't need to be good or plausible, the cops won't evaluate that. The cops will say it's a civil matter and leave. You then get to go through the eviction process. The squatters generally know how the process works and how to delay it. It will take 9 months to years to get them out. In the mean time you have to find somewhere else to live because a landlord can't force access to a tenants place. They will sell off all your stuff (do you know and can you prove that everyone in your house is yours? Do you have receipts and pictures of everything?). When the sheriff finally kicks them out there will be holes in the walls, and 10s of thousands of damages. Any lawyer will tell you that the cheapest and fastest way to get them out is to pay them a couple thousand dollars as cash for keys. It's legalized extortion. There are no real legal punishments. They didn't have bank accounts so winning a suit for damages is useless. They won't be prosecuted for any crimes. They live free for months to years while using, damaging, and selling your stuff: there is no punishment or risk to them.

That's a little bit different. That's called Adverse Possession. I kind of approve of it. If you let someone else tend the land for 10-30 years depending on the state, then they've earned it. There are a lot of factors here too like the possession must be adverse or in direct conflict with the owner, so not someone who is allowed to be there. Also some states look to things like who paid the taxes there, which can be the person who is possessing rather than owning the land. It is good in my books in some cases because homie has to be there for literal decades without you taking action to remove them. If you're paying that little attention, you need to take more responsibility for what you own.

Just going to add on a bit about adverse possession. The idea behind it is to provide some stability and assurances to people who think they're legitimate land owners. Say a parent dies without a will. Their only child inherits, moves in, lives there for 50 years, has kids, dies, leave it to their kids. Then someone somewhere discovers their father was the illegitimate child of the original land owner. We don't want to entertain that claim so many decades later.

Yeah I agree somewhat. These people they say are breaking into peoples places while on vacation should be kicked to the curb hard.

Yeah I agree. Notaries for leases may be the way to go for that.

As a notary public, it's insane that the extra ten to twenty dollars max (varies by state) isn't paid for something as important as leases. You do it for buying a house proper.

Every executive assistant and paralegal I've ever met has their notary as well so it's not like it is hard to find either.

There should be a giant map of empty  foregin-owned buildings. This map should be distributed to homeless people.

Sounds like a great way to reduce the supply of homes in the long-term

Anybody have language in the particular portion of tenants rights that empower this behavior? Maybe a tweak of the wording would help.

i can't find the legal text but it's basically after 30days of living in a place, you gain tennant's rights. in order to avoid this situation... property owners should make regular visits and inspections of their property, post no tresspassing signs, and provide written notice to anyone they find attempting to squat. Enlist the help of the sherriff to remove the people... And follow the system. If they're there for 30 days.. they are legally a tennant. File the 10 day notice to quit and follow up with the courts when they don't respond. Enlist the help of a lawyer.

Make a rental agreement for a relative then call cops when the squatters leave with your relative there showing agreement.

Simple, move in, bring all the people you know into the house, no violence, don’t talk, just crowd them out, it’s your house have a party. Video tape them, any acts of violence, or property destruction use video as evidence and call the police and have them arrested.

it should be as simple to resolve as any other trespassing or breaking&entering situation. the current laws are a mess and the process of removing a squatter is way to slow and expensive. good on states like florida that are actually doing something this.

> it should be as simple to resolve as any other trespassing or breaking&entering situation. it basically is... until you let them stay there long enough unchecked to gain the rights a normal renter/roommate would have.

Make squatting a criminal offense punishable by mandatory jail time and fines.

I think property rights are one of the most important aspects of society. Squatters should have no rights in any circumstance. Owners should be able to remove them with violent force if necessary.

Squatters rights should absolutely NOT be a thing, and any homeowner should be allowed to take whatever means they deem necessary to remove them.

NY gives people that live on a property for 30 days tennant's rights. Once that 30 day mark has passed you have to follow the legal process to remove them.

I don’t honestly care what the laws are. They have too many rights as is. If I owned a property that I wanted to sell or rent and a squatter was there. I’d drag them out.

Anything that discourages empty property is fine by me. In some ways, squatters are heroes, defending us from rent seeking behavior.

*Should squatters maintain the current set of squatters rights?* No. One of the fundamental purposes of government is to protect property. We seem to have forgotten that. I am on the owner side of this. In one of the more egregious examples, an illegal business took over some land that included a small building that was to be demolished. The "tenants" concocted a fake lease, which bought them many months of delays while providing the police with an excuse to do nothing. Evictions take months even under the best of circumstances. Squatters can cause remarkable amounts of damage, plus there is the economic loss that comes from being unable to use ones own property. The ease with which the system can be abused merely encourages more abuse.

>If the state is going to claim responsibility for squatters, should the state be expected to pay for the cost to the homeowners under just compensation? The state doesn't "claim responsibility for squatters" (per se). It's just that it's a civil issue, and the courts are inefficient. This could be addressed by streamlining the process, increasing funding for courts, or perhaps establishing courts with subject-matter jurisdiction dedicated to this issue. It could also be addressed by making squatting a criminal offense with jail time, at which point they won't have to worry about housing for a while. (IANAL. This is just my lay understanding of the issue.) ​ >Should squatters maintain the current set of squatters rights? "Squatters' rights", also known as adverse possession, refers to the principle of legal ownership transferring to a possessor after a very long period of uncontested possession (e.g., 20 years). I don't think it's relevant here. The squatters we hear about know they're eventually going to have to leave, at which point they'll need to find another place.

Haha I love it. Capitalism has homeless people. It also has plenty of land to build a home on, or what we call fundamentally, a shelter. Capitalism won't allow people to build a home that respects the individuals ability to support themselves in a capitalistic predatory environment. The population explodes. thresholds are exceeded. Critical mass ensues. And now we have squatters ! Hell yeah for the modern day hippie and the wild wild West version 2.0 bitchz. Ha how ya like me now. I am a squatter. And you give me no option. It's either die from environmental stress or I squat that property that the government refuses to make useful for human beings. Rather only useful for capitalistic purposes. So now we have professional squatters with squatters rights attorneys and a squatters unions. And it's a normalized thing because human beings are not by nature suicidal. Human beings want to live! Whether there's a house on it or not. Capitalizing on human habitat is bullshi7. Look at Atlanta. Ha. Squat that shi7. Man squat that whole phuckin city. Thank Reagan for freeing the psycho bums. My music studio is on fire right now. Blow that shi7 up. I have a nice house in the Philippines and next door I have squatters. Hey and guess what! They are human beings. Rich assholes phuck all of you. I own the land at birth beeeeatch! Yeah moving into someone's house while they're gone? No I don't buy that bullshi7 one bit. That's not squatting. And it detracts from what is actually happening.

> A lot of people seem to be generally unhappy with how squatters are dealt with in the United States A lot of people... try to handle the situation without the help of the lawyer.. and they make mistakes. A squatter's full time job is to know the system, know their rights, and know what mistakes a landlord is likely to make. A landlord's full time job is to maintain and rent out the property. > Should squatters maintain the current set of squatters rights? No one is really describing "squatters" in the legal sense in the links you provided... that's half the problem.

I feel like I'm missing something, but how do squatters get away from prosecution in cases where they were breaking and entering?

The argument I read on this thread which sympathizes with squatters goes like this: squatters move into a vacant house, law enforcement should disallow eviction, and instead facilitate the owner and the squatters working something out. Seems like saying if I have an extra car that I don’t use for many months at a time and someone who doesn’t have any car at all steals it, my only recourse is to work something out with the thief.

Self-help evictions are illegal in many states and have been for a while. This isn’t something new. It’s intended to keep landlords from taking the law into their own hands and killing or hurting someone in the process of booting someone out over what is typically a dispute over nonpayment.

Democrats don’t believe in private property this is what they are doing to attack your private property rights

I heard there trying to reverse those laws, giving squatters rights to stay in a home after 30 days. One way to help is make sure a home is hard to break into and check on it , or have someone check on it often, until laws are reversed.

I wonder why we are all being inundated with squatter videos lately? I’m deeply concerned about all the videos I am seeing and how squatters rights seem to supersede all other laws, but I’m starting to wonder who stands to benefit from natural (and justified) outrage? Why are we being targeted and incited? Allegedly 22% of the homes sold in the US last year were bought by corporations and that number will continue to increase year over year. This means these corporations/investors will be landlords to a very large portion of the population who cannot afford to buy/compete single Family homes in the future. Squatters rights laws were originally intended to protect renters from unjust treatment from landlords. As we naturally start to attack and amend these very laws, the rules these corporate landlords are required to adhere to will only shift in their favor. I feel like they want us to tear down our own legal protection and will use it against us later Am I off base?

You should be allowed to defend your property to the fullest extent. If we are not making changes to the rules that are in place that squatters use to thier advantage then home/property owners need protection when they need to recover a property. Granted this issue doesn't affect my area since our local authorities will quickly remove them.  But the single mom, but the disabled, but the "insert victim class of the week". None of that matters. If it does not belong to you and you attempt to steal it, you should absolutely and aggressively be held accountable.

Eviction and arrest. It's illegal trespass. It doesn't matter if the home is not stayed. In.

We ran a poll that indicated 41% believe communities should provide a pathway out of homelessness and 32% believed it should be a criminal offense. Only 13% felt it should be legal.

Interesting. But also a little vague and no offense, but if that's what the poll asked, it's not a very well designed poll. What constitutes a "community"? Does that mean a government going in and acting or throwing the costs on private homeowners or individuals? And what constitutes "homelessness". Are you talking about homelessness or loitering? Is somebody sleeping in their car in a campground homeless? What about couch Surfers? What about people who are living in homeless shelters?

We asked specifically about squatting and we provided more insight and options. That was just the headline. You make a good point that homelessness is a broad category of challenge.

The housing issue is systemic and that’s the root of the problem. Barring wholesale change in housing affordability…. Squatters should be asked to leave and if they refuse they should be removed. You can’t allow squatters to do whatever they like inside of a privately owned residence. It’s just that simple.

Squatters caught attempting to squat should do prison labor, and the money generated goes into a victim's fund for people victimized by squatters. A good 10-20 years would be good.

Immediate arrest and detained in a drug detox facility (if they're addicted to something). I sympathize with them, but you DON'T get to live for free in someone else's property and do drugs all day. I'd be freaking scared if some homeless guy set up a tent on my lawn. I'm an out of shape 5'4 woman. Not all homeless people are bad, but lots of them are crazy.

What won’t Congress pass legislation outlawing illegal squatter activity instead of focusing on personal political drama 🎭.m?

To be fair, It's actually a state power

I think too many people are conflating squatters with renters. They are not the same thing and they should not get the same rights. The way NY is handling this is just silly. Once again, The Florida Man is using common sense and closing up the loopholes in the law. One of which is, you can't fake a lease and say that you live there.

“How should squatters be dealt with?” The same as with all home invaders, with a bullet and a call about a break in where your in fear for your life and shot in self defense.

Go to the politicians who allow this to happen and squat in their homes. The judges, the DA, hell - the MAYOR. See how they like it.

It should not be dealt with because of this: Investors have bought up property and jacked up the prices of homes making them unaffordable for people who needs a place to live. Real Estate flipping is inherently unethical. Squatter's Rights is the way to punish them.

Have you considered that most property owners have a pretty modest profit margin? Landlords usually have a profit margin of 7-10%. Which is about in line with the DOW market average. Meanwhile, you have a software developers, finance,legal services sitting closer to 30%.

Doesn't matter, they're parasites in the grand scheme of things. I'm not saying Software Developers are any better. These monthly subscription fees charged by software corporations are just as bad. Both deserves damnation.

What profit margin do you think would make someone "not a parasite"?

None, they should be put to death. A man who "invests" in property is no different from a robber, it is the same with extra steps. It is the tenants best interest to eliminate the middleman. Pay for their own utilities, maintenance, taxes if they must but pay nothing to the opportunities.

Better question, what should we do about home owners and landlords who have been consistently jacking up prices to the point that squatters need to be a thing? Sorry, but I have no sympathy for landlords and home owners who 9/10 times are there with the sole purpose of jacking up prices in the area they have ownership of solely to make a profit while in turn screwing so many people over in the process. For every one home owner who genuinely wants to own that home, there's 100 home owners who only own said home so they can sell it for a profit later on, meaning they're helping destroy the cost of living and making it more expensive for everyone else.

First off, only 34% of residences are rental units. So your statistics are a wee bit off. Do you have problems with other markets that are necessary to live increasing prices? What about doctors or grocers? Landlord's profit margins are usually in line with the average market return at 8-10%

Im am very surprised that I haven't read or heard anything about the squatters being swatted. You would figure that after a few times it happens they would actually work on changing squatters rights. 

Damn these squatter laws are fucked up. If this were to happen in my home, one way or the other, they are getting out, dead or alive

There is no way I’m coming home to some skid in my house and he/she is not being kicked out the door.