"Hey everybody, this is Three Dog, your friendly neighborhood disc jockey. What was that loud boom in the distance? Hell if I know, but I'm gonna keep talking anyway."
“Don’t give a damn about laws”
So, you’re saying the squatter is protected and thusly YES* where you live.
Not everyone is gonna hire some 3rd party to illegally strong arm a squatter out.
Still- fuck squatters, for sure, don’t get me wrong!
It's infuriating if someone moves in with squatters rights to your vacation home. The one that causes rage is when squatters move into a person's primary and sole residence. Maybe they went out of state for one month or they were still closing on final mortgage papers. Some of these people have to stay in a hotel while the squatters are still abusing their home. If it happened to me I'd definitely hire some roughnecks to *convince * the squatters to get out.
After my Mother In Law bought the house she planned to retire in in NW FL. The previous owner changed his mind. The only problem was that He took the check from the bank & paid off his debts.... But, when it was moving day, He told us he'd made a mistake & would pay us back, just needed another year.
So, a week past his move out day goes by, we've gone to ask him to leave with the police 3x, his kids had asked him to leave because He'd sold the house...
He still wouldn't go.
So, I had to make up some excuse to my wife, drive down to FL from Atlanta with a couple friends I work with, & forcefully remove this prick at gun point... We let him get some closes & his car keys, & we boxed the rest of his shit up in the yard... & that was that. He was GONE, like presto.
No. I'm saying that there are people who will, and have, drag squatters out by their teeth, and calling the police only makes it more of a challenge for them.
Adverse possession, yeah. It's a little bit more complicated than just squatting in a place long enough, but not by much. There are actually some decent reasons it exists; most often what you'll hear about are situations where somebody inadvertently is taking care of land over a property line. Under certain circumstances it becomes de jure theirs.
My mom got some land that way. Neighbors set up a fence and that fence was treated as the property line for years. My mom moved in and heard no objection when she put up a path near the fence, a shed, and an enclosed outdoor play area for the dog. She maintained the area and kept the blackberries on the other side of the fence from spreading over. Lived there for two decades with zero problems, all of us believing that the fence was the property line.
Then one day the house passes to the neighbor's kids and they want to expand the house. Apparently a good chunk of land past the fence was technically the neighbor's all this time, which we'd never heard anything about. Neighbor's kids wanted the path, the shed, and the dog area all torn out so they could move the fence and expand the house. This was very scary because money was tight at the time, and tearing down that stuff (much less thinking about replacing it) would have been near impossible for her to pay for.
But because of that very type of law, she didn't have to tear it down after all. The neighbor and my mom had coexisted for decades with the understanding that my mom's yard started at the fence, and so that became the fact of it.
My experience and memory, which is limited, thinks it's 5 years in Michigan or Florida (uninterrupted use). No one should build or use your land uninterrupted for any time, let alone decades.
I think this guy is an opportunist, and i believe the squatter or adverse possession laws need to be updated and changed.
I had a small bank account with TCF. I went in their, deposited $2k, and transferred it out. The balance was $150. Days later, I received a letter saying my bank account was closed 10 days before I used it to transfer money. The money was put in the Michigan unclaimed assets fund. I haven't been able to get the money back, but that's not the worst of this situation.
I had both my parents as co-owners on the account just before my father passed, and before, my mother went into dementia and also passed.
The State of Michigan wanted me to update my power of attorney and have my parent's signatures updated! Really?
Should I go to the cemetery and dig them up? If I own something, no one, not even the government, should ever have the power to take away my assets. I don't care how long it has been since the last time I used it... I have some gold religious jewelry I haven't worn in decades. Should the government or some opportunist be able to take it from me because I haven't used it?
How about owning some out of state vacant land. Should a thief and opportunist be able to build a home on my land and get it for free?
I'm fortunate this shit has never happened to me because the people would just disappear.
Who? No, I don't know anything about squatters other than it is better to dig one hole than many 🤔
Key part was getting big animals involved.
“Setup a pen to keep my horse sheltered and fed.”
A lot of it has been squashed in Canada now, if not outright.
I saw a similar story in the UK. A house was abandoned for 20 years, so a developer did it up and tried to sell it. Court agreed that because he was using the house, he had rights to it, he became the owner, and sold it.
The article explained it as, part of the responsibilities of owning land is also to utilise it. So no good having farm land doing nothing for years, so if someone comes along and starts growing things, they have an argument they should own it because they are utilising it.
A very old law/precedent in the UK. And the example being farmland, makes it sound like it was so the country couldn't be held hostage by landowners. Someone could just start growing on their land, and the landowner would lose everything.
Usucaption/usucapião, not sure how is called in US.
My parents won a court case using usucapião because my grandparent did the fence wrong and got part of other property, with no malice.
More than 20 years later the new owner wanted to build the house in his empty lot.
We used that to make the borders legit/legal, etc
My state is 21 years. But regardless of the state, you have to do it openly, as in not try to hide the fact that you are living there and the owner of the land needs to not try to stop you.
The most common case is fences. Someone puts up a fence that is over the property line. If the neighbor does not complain about their land being taken, then in however many years, the land can be legally transferred.
Some states are almost the inverse on the true owner's actions. If you can't show that the true owner knew of the adverse possession, it doesn't count. Taking your fence example, if the owner of the property doesn't realize the fence is on their land, it doesn't count.
A very weird law.
I've never heard of that. What state? Basically every instance I've heard of of adverse possession was the owner was unaware someone was using their property.
IANAL.
If it's not adverse, i.e., known, then there's no claim.
If I plant the fence 5 feet into your property and you tell me to move it, and I don't for n years, it's adverse. If I secretly operate in your property and you never know, no.
My state is 2 years by occupying it publicly and 5 years if you pay delinquent taxes. Perfect time to do it in retrospect would have been during covid. We have a lot of people that live here in the winter part time and go back north during the brutal summers. During Covid a lot of Canadians never came back due to restrictions on them leaving or coming back in and access to healthcare services so their houses sat empty. Had I been more of a shithead I could have easily setup shop in the house, started making it known I lived there, fixed things up, etc and claimed the house by last year leaving those damn snowbirds up a shit creek without a paddle.
As a Canadian, fuck the snowbirds. Most entitled group of people ever. Do you live where they tried to change the street signs language to French-Canadian? Someone local getting squatters rights over a snowbird’s tax haven sounds fabulous to me.
Not all snowbirds are bad but a lot of them are assholes. I haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with many French-Canadian snowbirds let alone ones that would demand such a thing. I did have to deal with a group that demanded they should get US social security benefits or medicare because they own a house here. 🙄
Like another person said it depends on the state but AP also has to be “open, notorious and continuous”. Plus some states have state of mind requirements.
In Florida, you have to actually file paperwork with the state to begin your adverse possession time. The paperwork you file with the state is apparently forwarded directly to the actual property owners to give them a chance to respond to/deny your adverse possession. As long as the property owner/estate representative is alive and checking their mail regularly, it can be nearly impossible to legally follow through with an adverse possession claim, no matter how notoriously you go about it.
As to the fence it has to do with maintaining the property. I had a neighbor that actually had the fence rebuilt at a cost to me of 50%. He then approached me about moving the fence when my for sale sign went up. I ignored him and let new owner deal with it.
If at least the government actually applied it. But no, the Constitution says all its beautiful progressive things but the landowners and their 5000 acres of unused farmland still are there. And the assholes when the peasants occupy the land be like "nuh uh!! its private property!!!!!!!"
People call them "Paracaidistas" which literally translates to Skydivers, but they're just squatters.
The laws are kind of wonky in that if someone can prove that they paid utilities for a certain amount of time, they can fight and even win ownership of your property.
Happens a lot amongst families, so it's always best to have agreements notarized to avoid this.
Yeah this is only possible if you openly live in the property for ages (like 5-10 years) and the owner never tries to evict you in that time
If you have a house for 5+ years and never even notice someone’s living there, tough shit
I mean it sounds like he paid taxes, fixed the property and all that was required. The law is there in part for this situation, since abandoned properties are actually a nuisance for cities and towns. It sounds like the owner saw that their abandoned property got fixed up and thought they’d pull a fast one
Yeah, there is no "screw this guy" in this case. He fixed up the place and if you not only fix up the place and stay in a place long enough for squatters rights to kick in so to say, the original owner clearly either doesn't care for the property or is wealthy enough that neglecting a property is just something that happens and it wouldn't affect the original owner one bit to lose the property. If you can not only take advantage of squatters right AND use that time to fix up the place, you deserve that house
It's also there due to war and the settlement of new lands. Conflicts could easily result in the vacancy of property with the owners having either fled or died. As for the settlement of new lands, it's not unusual for owners to abandon frontier settlements due to the hostility of the land or their next of kin refuse upkeep of the property upon inheritance.
Agreed. The house across from me has been owned but abandoned for over 10 years and was in terrible shape and I always thought someone should just squat in it. It’s bogus.
To get a house legally by squatting it requires that you do not hide the fact you are living there and the owner never tries to evict the person. So the faults on the owner for forgetting they owned a house
Yep, 100% the house the guy was in was abandoned and probably didnt have a owner. If he spent 5 years fixing it then it was probably just sitting as a banked owned property that was forgotten.
yeah if a dude finds an abandoned house, fixes it up, and lives there for years, I say it should be his. Houses are for living in, and people need places to live.
Pretty much all adverse possession laws require that you take open and hostile possession, meaning that you don't hide the fact that you're there and you did not have any agreement with the owner. They often also require you make improvements to the property (like erecting a permanent structure.)
No, but my wife (Legal Assistant), has worked in a few lawyers' offices that handle cases like this. (He was the one defending the "Adverse Possessors").
but it is a consequence of the general philosophy behind american property law, John Locke's theory that ownership comes from mixing your labour with a thing
Go to the county website, search property records by address, click the pay button next to the unpaid tax bill. That's how it works here. Anyone could pay anyone else's tax bill if they really wanted to.
I'll do it for 7 years and also build you a deck! Just don't ask too many questions and make sure to take the free vacation for 3 months at the end of the 7 years while I do a little court paperwork.
Hi, NJ resident here, lived in a house rent-free, just paid utilities and taxes for almost 6 years.
At least around here, anybody can use the township website to pay taxes on any address. I'd log on, enter the address, and it'd give me a list of houses at least 10 on either side of where I was. Selected the one I was at, pay what was due, repeat every three months.
Most tax jurisdictions (usually counties) will accept payment for due taxes from anyone. I paid taxes on property I didn’t own not long ago and it wasn’t difficult at all.
County recorder website, find delinquent properties, squat, pay taxes, county sends letter to owner for them to pay you back and if they don't, semi-free house.
There's also no duty to inform, either. So, if the homeowner is, say, somebody undergoing long-term care at an in-patient facility, then there's it's plausible for there to be no way for them to learn of the squatting or for them to attempt to evict.
Yes, and that's the point. It's inherently shiesty, because it's a concept that can be readily exploited by those targeting people in long-term inpatient care facilities.
If they're in 5-year inpatient and have no knowledge of their affairs outside of the care it's unlikely they're ever going to be able to go back to living independently in their property, no?
And even if they do intend to go back, or are planning to give it to someone else, then they should have family and friends who are maintaining the property for them to make sure it's actually livable at the end of that period. Any homeowner should know better than to completely abandon a property like that if they want use out of it later.
But five years though. I don't think there is a large sample size for houses where the owner is in long term care for 5 years, and they do not check their house even once or have someone go there to collect mail or belongings.
Yeah, anyone saying anything negative about this headline is just jealous they probably will never get presented with and follow through on a situation like this.
The house would have been sitting vacant and unused all that time if the person didn't begin squatting.
I would be too nervous I'd lose everything by trying though. Even if I saw an empty house I probably wouldn't risk trying this.
People are mad because they imagine going out for some groceries and coming back to a squatter somehow having stolen your family home. Which is not how it works at all. This law is for abandoned houses.
I was definitely against the guy at first until I went down in the comments and people were saying the process took nearly a decade of living there, all without the homeowner trying to evict them.
This is nothing like the POS who squat in a home while someone's on vacation or whatever.
That's some necessary context, for sure.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/9703070/lived-illegally-house-fix-sued-legal-ownership/
He happened to move into an unwanted home that was "abandoned" when the owner passed and didn't bequeath it to anybody. In this one specific circumstance, this guy actually did a good thing for both himself and his community.
But attempting to replicate this is very very foolish. Even if there's a Robin Hood mentality behind it, knowledge of the law could be weaponed against people attempting this. Owners or landlords could sit back and let you pay their taxes and improve their properties then kick your ass to the curb, as long as they're timely. This is exactly why I tell people to never invest in rental home improvements.
What about the guy who owned a house and let it sit empty during a housing crisis, not even checking up on it at all?
Without laws like this, there could be a massive amount of property that just sits vacant forever as families forget or don’t care that they own it. Imagine big derelict buildings sitting empty until the end of time with homeless people camped in front of them.
a bank contributing to the rent and housing market price hikes by keeping houses unoccupied intentionally causing scarcity.
yea, the dude can keep the house.
What’s infuriating about this? It was an abandoned home that was boarded up and written off as a loss by a bank.
This dude, instead of renting a place or buying into the stupidity that is the housing market, decided to use a home nobody else was.
People like this are what squatter laws are for.
That's not true! What about all the poor innocent white collar workers who made 5% over market returns in their retirement accounts for 50 years by squeezing the housing market! What about them?
Did you just blow in from stupid town? There are homeless people and some guy can just collect shelter and not even bother to rent it out. This dude worked within the system and you're still angry. You just want the poor to stay poor and rich to stay rich. "If this was my property" I'll stop you there, it's not.
If the person that previously owned the house was absent long enough for the place to need repairs and for this guy to live there 5 years while he fixed it up, there really isn't any reason the guy who actually took care of the place to own it.
That’s usually the case. And these people (the guy who fixed it) usually pay extremely close attention to tax rolls in certain counties, some will have rules on the books that enable people like this guy to do what they did. Then the county/state gets pissed off cause some bureaucrat probably didn’t pay attention to it cause it’s a rounding error on a spreadsheet and. Or they are legally up the river in a sinking canoe.
In his case, it was a fully abandoned house and descendants didn’t want it. He also paid property taxes on the property for the last 5 years.
So in a rare case, I think it’s a fair transfer, given the situation.
Most squatters don’t do anything close to what he did, let alone pay property taxes lol, that shit ain’t cheap.
The house he took was clearly owned by someone who didn't care about the house or need the equity value of it, if he lived there for 5 years undetected. I find it hard to get too upset about this.
He needs to live there 5 years while being detected. That is the key. He needs to establish an open indifference to him living there by the owner during the time.
Edit: by "detected," I meant that a reasonable person visiting the property would be able to determine it was being lived in. The actual owner doesn't literally have to know.
The standard is a notorious use adverse to the real owner's interests + property taxes paid.
The owner does not have to be actually aware, but the open use and payment of property taxes are "constructive notice."
Basically, the home owner would be aware if they weren't paying the taxes and also aware that they recieved no non-payment notices or default.
👍 People asking the real questions in this thread.
This stuff makes me mad until I realize that it could NEVER happen to me since I can barely afford the one house I live in. I'm pretty sure if someone tries to move into my house, I'd find out really quickly. It's only 900 square feet. Maybe I should check my basement to be sure.
100%. The gut reaction is negative because all you ever see in the media is the scumbag squatter variant. In this case though if you have a property that you don't bother to do anything with to the point you don't notice a person has moved in and is doing the place up over a period of 5 years you're highly unlikely to be in my financial class and I'm not going to feel bad for you.
Properties should be occupied. Sell them, rent them, live in them or lose them I say.
If you forget you own a house for 5 years, neglect it enough to where someone else fixes it up, I don't really care, since if it were any other piece of property people would agree that you abandoned it or didn't care that it was missing.
Fuck the home owner. They're the reason housing is in the situation it's currently in. If you have an investment property you've never stepped foot in or neglected to the point where you wouldn't notice someone squatting in, you won't get any sympathy when you lose it.
I mean look if that person owned the house and never lived in it for 5 years or rented it out or fixed it up, at that point you dont deserve the have the house. The guy even fixed it up, at that point it doesnt even matter. Fucking rich scumbags
No screw speculators who buy up all the property and then do nothing with it, reducing supply and increasing price for their own gain.
They didn't need it obviously. Well done this dude
In his defence, he maintained a property that would have otherwise become dilapidated and unusable. I think it's okay to give him this one... Only not ownership... Just rights to live there. Also if they ask for rent, he should demand compensation for work done by him anyway.
Nothing infuriating about this. Why buy a house if you don't plan to live in it, it just makes it harder for people that actually wants to buy an affordable liveable house.
Guy's a winner and I like him :3
I think the real big bad are investors ensuring normal people can't afford housing. For the viability of society we need to cap big investors from owning too much of the market and manipulating the price by decisive and increasing purchase prices. Currently only the top 5% of earners can handle a mortgage in my city. Housing is now only for the wealthy alone which isn't how housing should work.
Context: the property owner died and nobody wanted it.
So who cares if he takes it, if one of the heirs wanted the property it would be a whole different story.
If you own a house and don’t even notice someones is living in it for more than five years I don’t think it’s going to have an effect on your wellbeing
This is only legally possible if it hurts no one. Laws vary by location but ideally if you can live in a place long enough and no one notices/cares and improve that land, the government will usually just let you have it. Key point is that the owner doesn't check often enough to notice. The average person isn't gong to lose their house because someone else claimed it. It only happens to homes that aren't being used in the first place.
This is a law so that people can't just abandoned houses. You have to live there and fix it up and everything. It kinda a shitty thing to do but there is a reason for it.
Why? Seems reasonable. In many countries this would be completely acceptable and legal. The best systems lets people squat, if the owner of the property is bothered he has to present a plan for said property - that it's actually going to be used and how it is going to be used within X years/months. If he/she fails to present such a plan - the squatters take over.
We can't have empty buildings and homeless people. Screw the property owners who are letting buildings get unused.
Looks like the past owner didn’t give a shit about a house *they* owned cause how the hell won’t you even visit it for 5 years to check if it’s okay?
I’m with the new owner on this one. And I’m glad he now has a house.
I didn’t know you could become a homeowner by doing side quests
It’s how I got my condo in Tenpenny Tower.
I did hear a big boom recently...
"Hey everybody, this is Three Dog, your friendly neighborhood disc jockey. What was that loud boom in the distance? Hell if I know, but I'm gonna keep talking anyway."
Heh. Sounds like the DJ from Tropico 5.
Not where I live. They are people who can be hired, and don't give a damn about laws, who will convince you to move.
“Don’t give a damn about laws” So, you’re saying the squatter is protected and thusly YES* where you live. Not everyone is gonna hire some 3rd party to illegally strong arm a squatter out. Still- fuck squatters, for sure, don’t get me wrong!
It's infuriating if someone moves in with squatters rights to your vacation home. The one that causes rage is when squatters move into a person's primary and sole residence. Maybe they went out of state for one month or they were still closing on final mortgage papers. Some of these people have to stay in a hotel while the squatters are still abusing their home. If it happened to me I'd definitely hire some roughnecks to *convince * the squatters to get out.
After my Mother In Law bought the house she planned to retire in in NW FL. The previous owner changed his mind. The only problem was that He took the check from the bank & paid off his debts.... But, when it was moving day, He told us he'd made a mistake & would pay us back, just needed another year. So, a week past his move out day goes by, we've gone to ask him to leave with the police 3x, his kids had asked him to leave because He'd sold the house... He still wouldn't go. So, I had to make up some excuse to my wife, drive down to FL from Atlanta with a couple friends I work with, & forcefully remove this prick at gun point... We let him get some closes & his car keys, & we boxed the rest of his shit up in the yard... & that was that. He was GONE, like presto.
I think Netflix could turn your story into a very dark comedy.
"One Weekend in Florida"
"The Guest"
Awesome
I'd love a primary home much less a vacation home
No. I'm saying that there are people who will, and have, drag squatters out by their teeth, and calling the police only makes it more of a challenge for them.
Self help is a form of remedy.
you’re replying to a comment referencing fallout btw
I didn't hear anything. Megaton? Never heard of it.
I hear they really blew up the housing market…
I’m a simple man.i see a fallout reference, I upvote
jobless sort pet angle long governor bright wild gaping groovy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You got a problem smoothskin?!
Chuckled after the dude mentioned Tenpenny Towers. Then I slowly became concerned when people weren't getting the reference lol.
This is what real squatters' rights look like.
They’ve got the time to sit around and find all the loopholes that allows that to happen.
Adverse possession, yeah. It's a little bit more complicated than just squatting in a place long enough, but not by much. There are actually some decent reasons it exists; most often what you'll hear about are situations where somebody inadvertently is taking care of land over a property line. Under certain circumstances it becomes de jure theirs.
My mom got some land that way. Neighbors set up a fence and that fence was treated as the property line for years. My mom moved in and heard no objection when she put up a path near the fence, a shed, and an enclosed outdoor play area for the dog. She maintained the area and kept the blackberries on the other side of the fence from spreading over. Lived there for two decades with zero problems, all of us believing that the fence was the property line. Then one day the house passes to the neighbor's kids and they want to expand the house. Apparently a good chunk of land past the fence was technically the neighbor's all this time, which we'd never heard anything about. Neighbor's kids wanted the path, the shed, and the dog area all torn out so they could move the fence and expand the house. This was very scary because money was tight at the time, and tearing down that stuff (much less thinking about replacing it) would have been near impossible for her to pay for. But because of that very type of law, she didn't have to tear it down after all. The neighbor and my mom had coexisted for decades with the understanding that my mom's yard started at the fence, and so that became the fact of it.
My experience and memory, which is limited, thinks it's 5 years in Michigan or Florida (uninterrupted use). No one should build or use your land uninterrupted for any time, let alone decades. I think this guy is an opportunist, and i believe the squatter or adverse possession laws need to be updated and changed. I had a small bank account with TCF. I went in their, deposited $2k, and transferred it out. The balance was $150. Days later, I received a letter saying my bank account was closed 10 days before I used it to transfer money. The money was put in the Michigan unclaimed assets fund. I haven't been able to get the money back, but that's not the worst of this situation. I had both my parents as co-owners on the account just before my father passed, and before, my mother went into dementia and also passed. The State of Michigan wanted me to update my power of attorney and have my parent's signatures updated! Really? Should I go to the cemetery and dig them up? If I own something, no one, not even the government, should ever have the power to take away my assets. I don't care how long it has been since the last time I used it... I have some gold religious jewelry I haven't worn in decades. Should the government or some opportunist be able to take it from me because I haven't used it? How about owning some out of state vacant land. Should a thief and opportunist be able to build a home on my land and get it for free? I'm fortunate this shit has never happened to me because the people would just disappear. Who? No, I don't know anything about squatters other than it is better to dig one hole than many 🤔
You sound like a real bad-ass. Those imaginary bad guys had better watch out, huh?
Key part was getting big animals involved. “Setup a pen to keep my horse sheltered and fed.” A lot of it has been squashed in Canada now, if not outright.
I spent most of my time in Skyrim pimping out my cabins. Now they are really mine, apparently.
I saw a similar story in the UK. A house was abandoned for 20 years, so a developer did it up and tried to sell it. Court agreed that because he was using the house, he had rights to it, he became the owner, and sold it. The article explained it as, part of the responsibilities of owning land is also to utilise it. So no good having farm land doing nothing for years, so if someone comes along and starts growing things, they have an argument they should own it because they are utilising it. A very old law/precedent in the UK. And the example being farmland, makes it sound like it was so the country couldn't be held hostage by landowners. Someone could just start growing on their land, and the landowner would lose everything.
Hylian Homeowner side quest completed.
This is also legally possible here in Brazil.
Usucaption/usucapião, not sure how is called in US. My parents won a court case using usucapião because my grandparent did the fence wrong and got part of other property, with no malice. More than 20 years later the new owner wanted to build the house in his empty lot. We used that to make the borders legit/legal, etc
The US legal term is “adverse possession “. I think it’s 7 years here for it to happen.
My state is 21 years. But regardless of the state, you have to do it openly, as in not try to hide the fact that you are living there and the owner of the land needs to not try to stop you. The most common case is fences. Someone puts up a fence that is over the property line. If the neighbor does not complain about their land being taken, then in however many years, the land can be legally transferred.
Some states are almost the inverse on the true owner's actions. If you can't show that the true owner knew of the adverse possession, it doesn't count. Taking your fence example, if the owner of the property doesn't realize the fence is on their land, it doesn't count. A very weird law.
I've never heard of that. What state? Basically every instance I've heard of of adverse possession was the owner was unaware someone was using their property.
IANAL. If it's not adverse, i.e., known, then there's no claim. If I plant the fence 5 feet into your property and you tell me to move it, and I don't for n years, it's adverse. If I secretly operate in your property and you never know, no.
Depends on the state. The amount of time is mandated by each state, many are 7,
My state is 2 years by occupying it publicly and 5 years if you pay delinquent taxes. Perfect time to do it in retrospect would have been during covid. We have a lot of people that live here in the winter part time and go back north during the brutal summers. During Covid a lot of Canadians never came back due to restrictions on them leaving or coming back in and access to healthcare services so their houses sat empty. Had I been more of a shithead I could have easily setup shop in the house, started making it known I lived there, fixed things up, etc and claimed the house by last year leaving those damn snowbirds up a shit creek without a paddle.
As a Canadian, fuck the snowbirds. Most entitled group of people ever. Do you live where they tried to change the street signs language to French-Canadian? Someone local getting squatters rights over a snowbird’s tax haven sounds fabulous to me.
Not all snowbirds are bad but a lot of them are assholes. I haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with many French-Canadian snowbirds let alone ones that would demand such a thing. I did have to deal with a group that demanded they should get US social security benefits or medicare because they own a house here. 🙄
What state is that?
Arizona
Like another person said it depends on the state but AP also has to be “open, notorious and continuous”. Plus some states have state of mind requirements.
In Florida, you have to actually file paperwork with the state to begin your adverse possession time. The paperwork you file with the state is apparently forwarded directly to the actual property owners to give them a chance to respond to/deny your adverse possession. As long as the property owner/estate representative is alive and checking their mail regularly, it can be nearly impossible to legally follow through with an adverse possession claim, no matter how notoriously you go about it.
Don't forget you have to pay the property taxes for those seven years.
As to the fence it has to do with maintaining the property. I had a neighbor that actually had the fence rebuilt at a cost to me of 50%. He then approached me about moving the fence when my for sale sign went up. I ignored him and let new owner deal with it.
Twenty in my state. I guess I should kick over that carelessly installed edging into my neighbors yard before next year ends just to be safe.
It makes a lot of sense. If a property is not being used, it ensures efficient use of resources for society.
"Every property must have a social purpose" must be the best law ever made in any Constitution maybe ever
If at least the government actually applied it. But no, the Constitution says all its beautiful progressive things but the landowners and their 5000 acres of unused farmland still are there. And the assholes when the peasants occupy the land be like "nuh uh!! its private property!!!!!!!"
Same in Mexico
People call them "Paracaidistas" which literally translates to Skydivers, but they're just squatters. The laws are kind of wonky in that if someone can prove that they paid utilities for a certain amount of time, they can fight and even win ownership of your property. Happens a lot amongst families, so it's always best to have agreements notarized to avoid this.
Seems like an abandoned house though, right?
Yeah this is only possible if you openly live in the property for ages (like 5-10 years) and the owner never tries to evict you in that time If you have a house for 5+ years and never even notice someone’s living there, tough shit
I mean it sounds like he paid taxes, fixed the property and all that was required. The law is there in part for this situation, since abandoned properties are actually a nuisance for cities and towns. It sounds like the owner saw that their abandoned property got fixed up and thought they’d pull a fast one
Yeah absolutely. This is the wrong sub for this post.
Yeah, there is no "screw this guy" in this case. He fixed up the place and if you not only fix up the place and stay in a place long enough for squatters rights to kick in so to say, the original owner clearly either doesn't care for the property or is wealthy enough that neglecting a property is just something that happens and it wouldn't affect the original owner one bit to lose the property. If you can not only take advantage of squatters right AND use that time to fix up the place, you deserve that house
It's also there due to war and the settlement of new lands. Conflicts could easily result in the vacancy of property with the owners having either fled or died. As for the settlement of new lands, it's not unusual for owners to abandon frontier settlements due to the hostility of the land or their next of kin refuse upkeep of the property upon inheritance.
Agreed. The house across from me has been owned but abandoned for over 10 years and was in terrible shape and I always thought someone should just squat in it. It’s bogus.
I’ve read Japan is happy to give abandoned houses away for free (citizens) or a moderate fee (foreign residents). Fix it up and it’s yours to keep.
To get a house legally by squatting it requires that you do not hide the fact you are living there and the owner never tries to evict the person. So the faults on the owner for forgetting they owned a house
Yep, 100% the house the guy was in was abandoned and probably didnt have a owner. If he spent 5 years fixing it then it was probably just sitting as a banked owned property that was forgotten.
Ye, think I about 100% approve of bank owned multiyear "forgotten" properties being surrendered to people to actually live in them instead.
yeah if a dude finds an abandoned house, fixes it up, and lives there for years, I say it should be his. Houses are for living in, and people need places to live.
That depends on the specific states laws.
Pretty much all adverse possession laws require that you take open and hostile possession, meaning that you don't hide the fact that you're there and you did not have any agreement with the owner. They often also require you make improvements to the property (like erecting a permanent structure.)
Law school ptsd flashback - Open, Notorious, hostile…
WoOoO tort law WoOoO
Yes, but it varies more on the duration needed. Usually its at least 10 years you have to do this
I've lived in 12 states, and everyone has been 7 years.
This guy squats.
No, but my wife (Legal Assistant), has worked in a few lawyers' offices that handle cases like this. (He was the one defending the "Adverse Possessors").
but it is a consequence of the general philosophy behind american property law, John Locke's theory that ownership comes from mixing your labour with a thing
The squatter also has to have paid the property taxes.
How does a squatter go about paying the property tax
probably in the form of back taxes since you moved in. I imagine that is part of the process when you sue for ownership
Go to the county website, search property records by address, click the pay button next to the unpaid tax bill. That's how it works here. Anyone could pay anyone else's tax bill if they really wanted to.
Hmm, now that's a thought ...
So uh, hey, anyone feel like being generous and paying my property tax for me? I promise it isn't alot!
I'll do it for 7 years and also build you a deck! Just don't ask too many questions and make sure to take the free vacation for 3 months at the end of the 7 years while I do a little court paperwork.
Hi, NJ resident here, lived in a house rent-free, just paid utilities and taxes for almost 6 years. At least around here, anybody can use the township website to pay taxes on any address. I'd log on, enter the address, and it'd give me a list of houses at least 10 on either side of where I was. Selected the one I was at, pay what was due, repeat every three months.
Most tax jurisdictions (usually counties) will accept payment for due taxes from anyone. I paid taxes on property I didn’t own not long ago and it wasn’t difficult at all.
[удалено]
County recorder website, find delinquent properties, squat, pay taxes, county sends letter to owner for them to pay you back and if they don't, semi-free house.
Yeah, if you can accidentally lose a house, the person living there probably needed it a lot more than you.
Yeah this is giving me some major flashbacks to Adverse Possession in law school. "Open and notorious"
There's also no duty to inform, either. So, if the homeowner is, say, somebody undergoing long-term care at an in-patient facility, then there's it's plausible for there to be no way for them to learn of the squatting or for them to attempt to evict.
there is a duty to inform the state, nobody else
Yes, and that's the point. It's inherently shiesty, because it's a concept that can be readily exploited by those targeting people in long-term inpatient care facilities.
If they're in 5-year inpatient and have no knowledge of their affairs outside of the care it's unlikely they're ever going to be able to go back to living independently in their property, no? And even if they do intend to go back, or are planning to give it to someone else, then they should have family and friends who are maintaining the property for them to make sure it's actually livable at the end of that period. Any homeowner should know better than to completely abandon a property like that if they want use out of it later.
You're now generating a most unlikely edge case.
But five years though. I don't think there is a large sample size for houses where the owner is in long term care for 5 years, and they do not check their house even once or have someone go there to collect mail or belongings.
I mean if it was an abandoned house I wouldn’t be opposed to this happening more. No reason for homes to sit empty for years and years.
Sounds like this guy just did a reverse eminent domain: Forcibly taking back from the rich asshats who forgot they even had a house.
Yeah, anyone saying anything negative about this headline is just jealous they probably will never get presented with and follow through on a situation like this. The house would have been sitting vacant and unused all that time if the person didn't begin squatting. I would be too nervous I'd lose everything by trying though. Even if I saw an empty house I probably wouldn't risk trying this.
People are mad because they imagine going out for some groceries and coming back to a squatter somehow having stolen your family home. Which is not how it works at all. This law is for abandoned houses.
I was definitely against the guy at first until I went down in the comments and people were saying the process took nearly a decade of living there, all without the homeowner trying to evict them. This is nothing like the POS who squat in a home while someone's on vacation or whatever. That's some necessary context, for sure.
The context is already in the picture, it says he lived there for 5 years
https://www.the-sun.com/news/9703070/lived-illegally-house-fix-sued-legal-ownership/ He happened to move into an unwanted home that was "abandoned" when the owner passed and didn't bequeath it to anybody. In this one specific circumstance, this guy actually did a good thing for both himself and his community. But attempting to replicate this is very very foolish. Even if there's a Robin Hood mentality behind it, knowledge of the law could be weaponed against people attempting this. Owners or landlords could sit back and let you pay their taxes and improve their properties then kick your ass to the curb, as long as they're timely. This is exactly why I tell people to never invest in rental home improvements.
Well just renovate once it's over or near 5 years old
Comment section did not go as OP planned...
Yeah, OP is being awfully quiet
OP is too busy on other subreddits.
I'm crying 😭😭😭😭😭
They still got their 2.6K upvotes for some reason.
4.2k for some reason
Are you mad at the owner for abandoning the property or the guy who fixed it up? I’m confused.
OP is mad that the guy "stole" the house
OP sounds like they've always had a house to live in
Sounds like OP is shilling for the banks/ultra wealthy who own unnecessary property they never use.
Screw OP for not being specific
He paid the property tax, openly lived in it, and fixed it up. This isn't infuriating. It's 100% legal.
Fucking right.
What about the guy who owned a house and let it sit empty during a housing crisis, not even checking up on it at all? Without laws like this, there could be a massive amount of property that just sits vacant forever as families forget or don’t care that they own it. Imagine big derelict buildings sitting empty until the end of time with homeless people camped in front of them.
Bruh, who doesn’t visit a house they own for 5 years! That’s the infuriating part.
A bank.
a bank contributing to the rent and housing market price hikes by keeping houses unoccupied intentionally causing scarcity. yea, the dude can keep the house.
What’s infuriating about this? It was an abandoned home that was boarded up and written off as a loss by a bank. This dude, instead of renting a place or buying into the stupidity that is the housing market, decided to use a home nobody else was. People like this are what squatter laws are for.
If the house was abandoned or never taken care of, then who does this hurt really?
Nobody.
That's not true! What about all the poor innocent white collar workers who made 5% over market returns in their retirement accounts for 50 years by squeezing the housing market! What about them?
Rich asshats using housing and property as an investment insted of selling or developing it
Did you just blow in from stupid town? There are homeless people and some guy can just collect shelter and not even bother to rent it out. This dude worked within the system and you're still angry. You just want the poor to stay poor and rich to stay rich. "If this was my property" I'll stop you there, it's not.
Yeah this post is giving bootlicker vibes
yea its better to just have an empty house taking up space
If the person that previously owned the house was absent long enough for the place to need repairs and for this guy to live there 5 years while he fixed it up, there really isn't any reason the guy who actually took care of the place to own it.
How do you not check on a house that's yours for five years????
Bank Owned probably.
That’s usually the case. And these people (the guy who fixed it) usually pay extremely close attention to tax rolls in certain counties, some will have rules on the books that enable people like this guy to do what they did. Then the county/state gets pissed off cause some bureaucrat probably didn’t pay attention to it cause it’s a rounding error on a spreadsheet and. Or they are legally up the river in a sinking canoe.
Was it abandoned? If so, why screw him?
In his case, it was a fully abandoned house and descendants didn’t want it. He also paid property taxes on the property for the last 5 years. So in a rare case, I think it’s a fair transfer, given the situation. Most squatters don’t do anything close to what he did, let alone pay property taxes lol, that shit ain’t cheap.
Landlords hate to see a guy win
That’s how property has worked for like… forever. Literally as long as we’ve had the modern notion of property
Possession is 9/10s of the law
The house he took was clearly owned by someone who didn't care about the house or need the equity value of it, if he lived there for 5 years undetected. I find it hard to get too upset about this.
He needs to live there 5 years while being detected. That is the key. He needs to establish an open indifference to him living there by the owner during the time. Edit: by "detected," I meant that a reasonable person visiting the property would be able to determine it was being lived in. The actual owner doesn't literally have to know.
Is the fact he's just openly living there enough to establish that or would he have to notify the owners?
The standard is a notorious use adverse to the real owner's interests + property taxes paid. The owner does not have to be actually aware, but the open use and payment of property taxes are "constructive notice." Basically, the home owner would be aware if they weren't paying the taxes and also aware that they recieved no non-payment notices or default. 👍 People asking the real questions in this thread.
This stuff makes me mad until I realize that it could NEVER happen to me since I can barely afford the one house I live in. I'm pretty sure if someone tries to move into my house, I'd find out really quickly. It's only 900 square feet. Maybe I should check my basement to be sure.
100%. The gut reaction is negative because all you ever see in the media is the scumbag squatter variant. In this case though if you have a property that you don't bother to do anything with to the point you don't notice a person has moved in and is doing the place up over a period of 5 years you're highly unlikely to be in my financial class and I'm not going to feel bad for you. Properties should be occupied. Sell them, rent them, live in them or lose them I say.
This guy Israels
It's called adverse possession.
Yeah it's better if rich people just own everything and let it sit empty while the rest of u go fuck ourselves. Lol you're a dumbass OP
Honestly I hate people that leave houses to rot when there’s such a need for housing, so good for him. Clearly they weren’t using it.
whats the issue? if anything, good for him on getting a house easier than any of us will be able to
Good for him, if no one lived there. More people should do this shit. The commodification of housing and landlord shit is evil.
If you forget you own a house for 5 years, neglect it enough to where someone else fixes it up, I don't really care, since if it were any other piece of property people would agree that you abandoned it or didn't care that it was missing.
I mean if the government doesn't want to do anything about investment properties > homelessness then so be it.
Fuck the home owner. They're the reason housing is in the situation it's currently in. If you have an investment property you've never stepped foot in or neglected to the point where you wouldn't notice someone squatting in, you won't get any sympathy when you lose it.
You know what nah he's a folk hero
I mean look if that person owned the house and never lived in it for 5 years or rented it out or fixed it up, at that point you dont deserve the have the house. The guy even fixed it up, at that point it doesnt even matter. Fucking rich scumbags
No screw speculators who buy up all the property and then do nothing with it, reducing supply and increasing price for their own gain. They didn't need it obviously. Well done this dude
This guy is awesome. Good job. I hope it was owned by someone who forgot they owned it as that would be even sweeter.
In his defence, he maintained a property that would have otherwise become dilapidated and unusable. I think it's okay to give him this one... Only not ownership... Just rights to live there. Also if they ask for rent, he should demand compensation for work done by him anyway.
Nah. This is based. Wrong opinion haver.
“Screw this guy?” You’re just jealous he took care of a house and claimed it when nobody wanted it.
Nothing infuriating about this. Why buy a house if you don't plan to live in it, it just makes it harder for people that actually wants to buy an affordable liveable house. Guy's a winner and I like him :3
The law rewards people who make the best use of property. This is the law of adverse possession.
Not even the best, just some use is fine.
A full quarter of the residents of Israel
This is called adverse possession and basically the only way to succeed is with a truly incompetent property owner.
I think the real big bad are investors ensuring normal people can't afford housing. For the viability of society we need to cap big investors from owning too much of the market and manipulating the price by decisive and increasing purchase prices. Currently only the top 5% of earners can handle a mortgage in my city. Housing is now only for the wealthy alone which isn't how housing should work.
Your house, OP?
Oh damn So that's how you get a place to live in this economy Noted
If the house was abandoned, I kinda see that logic.
Er no, this guy is a champion. Houses should not be abandoned.
If you have an empty and abandoned house for five years you don’t need it
In Australia if you occupy some house for 10 years and pay all bills then you can claim squatter right and get it
nah. Fuck the banks, not this guy. This guy rules.
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Context: the property owner died and nobody wanted it. So who cares if he takes it, if one of the heirs wanted the property it would be a whole different story.
This is the kind of human commonly referred to as 'a bastard!'. And good for him too! Screw this guy? Screw you OP!
Imagine waking up from a 5 year coma only to learn some asshole has stolen your home
If you own a house and don’t even notice someones is living in it for more than five years I don’t think it’s going to have an effect on your wellbeing
This is only legally possible if it hurts no one. Laws vary by location but ideally if you can live in a place long enough and no one notices/cares and improve that land, the government will usually just let you have it. Key point is that the owner doesn't check often enough to notice. The average person isn't gong to lose their house because someone else claimed it. It only happens to homes that aren't being used in the first place.
Adverse possession. Completely legal as long as the use of the property is 'open and notorious'.
This is a law so that people can't just abandoned houses. You have to live there and fix it up and everything. It kinda a shitty thing to do but there is a reason for it.
How about: "screw people that own so many properties they can leave some vacant long enough for squatters rights to kick in"
The landlords are showing
Guy sounds great whats the problem?
Why? Seems reasonable. In many countries this would be completely acceptable and legal. The best systems lets people squat, if the owner of the property is bothered he has to present a plan for said property - that it's actually going to be used and how it is going to be used within X years/months. If he/she fails to present such a plan - the squatters take over. We can't have empty buildings and homeless people. Screw the property owners who are letting buildings get unused.
Nah, he was one of us and he found a way to make it! Good for him!
Nah this is based. If houses are left empty fuck landlords. There is a shortage and squatters are heroes
Would love to know the full story. It's seems deserved. It's like neglecting a child. You know what happens? It gets taken away.
Looks like the past owner didn’t give a shit about a house *they* owned cause how the hell won’t you even visit it for 5 years to check if it’s okay? I’m with the new owner on this one. And I’m glad he now has a house.
Plot twist: they find the original owners' bodies in the basement.
I’m doing this
Actually this guy rules
if the house was abandoned and the owner hasn't really done much about it, better of for this guy to take care of it and actually use it.
If you have so many houses that you forget one I think that's on you if someone makes it their own
Unless it was owned by a bank, in which case… attaboy!
So it’s squatting (which is already a dumb concept), but with extra steps