Squatters’ rights, 21st century style
It seems that an old and widespread law known as squatters’ rights is currently being exploited in many states by people occupying other people’s vacant property:
In many states, a person or persons can enter and inhabit another person’s vacant property, set up house, and after—in most cases—a mere 30 days claim some form of bizarre “right” to inhabit the home in which they did not pay a day’s rent nor a single mortgage payment: a home they do not own, did not buy, and have no right to occupy.
The law can then treat them as tenants, which gives them many rights. How extensive those rights are depends on the locality, but they can be very extensive indeed and it can take a long time to evict the squatter-tenants.
Florida has just passed a law, signed by Governor DeSantis, that highly speeds up the process in Florida and allows the police to immediately remove squatters.
One of the reasons squatters have been in the news recently is this:
A Venezuelan migrant has gone viral after he posted a video to social media that explained how illegal immigrants can take advantage of squatting laws and stay in American homes.
“I have thought about invading a house in the United States,” a man identified as Leonal Moreno said in the TikTok video. “I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
The man told his followers in Spanish that he anticipated his next business would be “invading” abandoned houses. He claimed that some of his African friends have told him they have already taken seven homes in the U.S.
Great.
One way to keep a property ‘vacant’ is to kill the property owner: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-squatters-murder-pennsylvania/14558280/
I just looked up North Carolina squatters law. It takes twenty years of open occupation to gain title.
I’ve been noting such incidents covered in the English Daily Mail website lately – and I honestly have the feeling that this is where vigilante action will come into play in various parts of the US. Taking over real property, without permission, lease or payments hits a very personal degree of outrage, especially if it a home is a long-time family residence.
Local law enforcement walking away with a shrug and saying it’s a civil matter and washing their hands because the squatters claim to have a lease … adds insult to injury. It’s expensive to go to civil court and evict a determined squatter who is claiming to be a tenant. Especially when the squatters trash the place and rip out the copper and electrical wiring. That Moreno character is going to get people killed, or badly injured, trying to take over empty homes. Local laws and practices differ very widely.
There is already at least one enterprising and fearless gentleman doing the business of chasing out squatters, and volunteers doing the same in other cases.
I’ve been hearing stories about them doing this in California where the homeowners simply go out of town for a few days on vacation to find squatters have seized their home. And even in those situations, it often takes months or years to go through the California legal system (which is heavily weighted in favor of the squatters if they check the right demographic boxes) to get their house back even if it was never “abandoned”, plenty of time for the squatters to move on to another victim.
Was war declared on the middle class and I missed it?
How long before vigilante groups take over policing?
I don’t know how these squatters are getting past burglary laws – or even trespassing laws.
But apparently the squatter is gaining entry somehow (other than burglary), and then the laws gets even more confusing, i.e., requiring a lawyer and long waits thru the court process.
Neo wrote:
That’s quick—just checked the other day and was surprised that squatters had rights in Florida. Looks like Florida moved quickly on this, and now allows police to “immediately remove squatters.” That’s the way to handle it if there were no break-ins.
People w/ second homes, summer homes, vacation homes or even remote vacant property should closely check what your steps are for removing a squatter, because some of these laws are incredibly tricky, and seem to favor the squatter.
I think in many cases the original intent of some of these laws was to protect actual tenants from getting evicted. That misguided idea got blended with an older tradition of letting squatters occupy genuinely abandoned property, and we’ve ended up with this mess. At least Florida is responding. I don’t expect blue hells to do a damn thing.
NYC is going full Crazy. It seems they are making the laws even stronger for the “rights” of squatters. About time the Rich Upper Class have their Home and Apts invaded by squatters (not necessarily homeless/illegals). Use the laws against the Elites.
Vigilantes already turned up to chase away the squatters in the NYC incident, according to the neighbors. No word on whether or not it worked.
Laws will vary widely from place to place. As an example, New York has a (IIRC) ten year requirement before the squatter can claim rights to stay. NYC, on the other hand, only has a thirty day requirement, which is absurdly short.
I saw a segment the other day on the guy in California who deals with squatters. He gets a lease from the owner, brings the cops with him, and confronts the squatters. Apparently the lease is what let’s him deal with the squatters.
huxley @ 2:54pm,
Yes, but I don’t think you’ve missed it.
In California it depends on the area. Oakland and LA City make it a lot harder to evict.
And if the squatter has a fake lease then it goes into the court system.
If the squatter has been there less than 30 days, it’s easy to get them to move.
Over 30 days they have tenant rights.
Easy eviction is usually a couple of months.
If the tenant has been there over a year, you need a just cause. Such as major renovation.
https://tinyurl.com/msubfn4t
After invoking squatter’s rights, Trump takes up residence in White House.
In Texas, the squatters have to pay the property taxes before they can make a claim. The rest of the requirements are fairly easy to establish, if the squatter actually cares for the property, but since they aren’t likely to pay the taxes since they aren’t willing to buy the property either, it is easy to evict them for trespassing.
There was a case a couple of years ago, where a squatter laid claim – and had it upheld – to a little homestead in the back country of one of the huge ranches. Squatter had been there, built a house, paid the utilities for his residence – for more than twenty years. IIRC, the claim was upheld because the ranch owner had not done anything about the squatter in all that time. But that was kind of a special case. The ranch was huge – but someone could set up a residence and live there, unnoticed or undisturbed for more than twenty years? That’s on the head of the landowner.
In areas where are these laws favor squatters, wouldn’t it be amusing to see those who support the left hoisted upon their own petard? Polls show that the most rabid on the left are those with postgraduate degrees. I would imagine that a solid majority of them have second vacation homes. Media personalities and
woke CEO’s also come to mind… Perhaps TicTok ‘influencer’ Leonal Moreno could be persuaded to share the addresses ‘available’ for occupancy.
The left has set the rules of the game they wish to play. Honor their choice and give them a healthy dose of it.
#4 “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
#13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Sounds like Marxism straight up, no one owns anything, and the judicial system has been steeped in it for decades
So from the top, investment firms like BlackRock are buying up homes, and from the bottom, migrant squatters are taking over empty houses. Maybe we can sic them on each other and direct the squatters to the empty homes the financial giants have acquired.
Disclaimer: There is some controversy about whether BlackRock really is buying up individual homes, but it does look like they bought a company that owns and rents out individual homes, so one way or the other the result isn’t so different.
________
There was a story a few years back about a judge in Colorado who acquired land out from under its owners by paying the property taxes on it. That is indeed legal, but back then one didn’t expect judges to behave that way. Keep track of what you own and pay the taxes on it.
Who says the top and bottom aren’t working together?
Probably not in deliberate concert, but BlackRock doesn’t care if it doesn’t make a penny off of rent on an entire state’s worth of properties.
The squatters don’t gain title to the properties they are trespassing in; they just can’t be evicted without a significant effort.
And, now that we are in the “ends justify the means” era of judicial conduct, who’s to say that some progressive-leaning judges won’t just rule in favor of squatters just because, actual evidence be damned.
End result, the war on the middle class (who are 7 out of 10 of U.S. landlords, with a portfolio of one or two homes), continues apace.
Who says the top and bottom aren’t working together?
Grunt:
Not me. That’s the way I suss it these days.
BTW, sus in French is passé simple for “I know / You know”.
My gut has been telling me for a while I’ve got to get out of this place, i.e. New Mexico.
It’s not a bad place. But I think whatever’s coming down is coming down and I don’t want to be in a blue place.
Last week “Civil War” premiered at the trendy SXSW Austin film festival.
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In the near future, a team of journalists travel across the United States during the rapidly escalating Second American Civil War that has engulfed the entire nation, between the American government and the separatist “Western Forces” led by Texas and California. The film documents the journalists struggling to survive during a time when the government has become a dystopian dictatorship and partisan extremist militias regularly commit war crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(2024_film)
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Thanks a heap, guys! I’m worried enough about the 2024 election. Thanks for throwing gasoline onto the bonfire.
huxley,
If I were single and childless I think I would move to Poland or Hungary. Maybe El Salvador. Read an interesting article about a Canadian couple who recently moved to El Salvador. It’s working out very well for them, thus far.
My life in the U.S. is relatively good, but I think I’d like to feel a part of a nation striving to do better; to be free and to honor its heritage and history.
I still hold out hope America can get on track, but if I didn’t have familial ties here I’d probably go somewhere that has already turned or is turning the corner. I like adventure!
I’m not overly worried. There is, after all, apparently a lot of ruin in this nation. But it’s more fun to create and build than watch the destruction of that which great people who came before me created and built.
Rufus:
At first glance I misread your recommendation as one for Portland! My bad.
I’m perhaps more optimistic that America can get back on track. Or less confident that one can go elsewhere for better.
I am sure that some places in the US are better than others. I sure miss Florida. DeSantis is making a lot of good moves.
We are seeing the Great American Resorting minus the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. I rather think the Red will defeat the Blue states, which are hemorrhaging citizens to the Red.
I’m glad for this article? post? on squatters and squatters’ rights. My wife and I own a small remote property with a cabin that we haven’t been to in years. In this state the laws concerning adverse possession (squatters) do not favor the squatter. You have to continuously occupy the property for 20 years, with the knowledge of the owner and pay the property taxes on it. And you have to make improvements to the property. So, a pretty high bar for someone to take your property.
I’m actually interested in that movie. I want to see how Texas and California team up to fight the government. What a strange pairing to join forces. I want to see how they explain that. From what little I know of the movie, the president is in a third term. I hope a lot of people would rebel against that, whether the president is on the right or left. Knowing the film industry it’ll be on the right.
I really hope they show just how horrible it could be. Even during The Civil War the two sides weren’t united in their respective causes. There were riots in New York City over the draft. There were places in the South where the Confederates couldn’t linger because the people hated them so. “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight “
This will be met with vigilante action is the theme here.
As we move closer and closer to an American version of a French Revolutionary purge, I can only get excited!
Together with Marxist AG Letitia James complete evisceration of the Constitutional prohibition against state taking property without just compensation, and the previous day’s post by neo, “Lawfare against Trump: all that matters are results” — with stirred but not yet shaken some 74 comments — shows that we are indeed hurtling towards Our Overdue Purge of incompetent, malicious, and tyrannical Elite Ruling Class.
This can only be settled by the swords and by massive blood-letting. I’ve stated this three years ago, and I’m thrilled in anticipation ogpf more Street justice actions.
Our side does not need Brown Shirts or Black Shirt thugs like the far Left does, as seen in the Turning Point talk at the University of Memphis faced against BLM and the police stand down.
We can self-organise and disband as needed. Stealthily.
This activity is my best metric to determine our descent into Civil War. The malignant tumors must be excused from the body politic.
Neo demurred against harsh judgement when people exercise sound — even if badly informed — reasoning. We are fast approaching when we will polarise over violence.
If the American Revolution had a single author, it was Tom Paine and his tract “Common Sense.” Pivotal and timely, he then spent 15 years in Revolutionary Europe cheering on the Jacobins with the most widely read pamphlet in the US during the 1790s, “The Age of Reason.”
Paine’s atheistic radicalism led him to become so reviled in the US that by 1802, after crossing the Atlantic to Baltimore, he could not find an ale house in that did not close its doors to him until a scruffy and lowly Irish bar-keep did.
When Paine later died in New York City, he got a pauper’s grave.
My point? To the far Left, today Trump is like Paine once became — the cruel and hated object of derision.
However, the cause today is anti-Jacobin against the New Jacobin. Let them pay their debts in blood. Let The People demand it. Celebrate!
Well, that movie had Texas and California in alliance, which isn’t too realistic. But it could happen, with other entities, and it could happen intra-state.
huxley, the North Carolina mountains are nice, if you don’t want to live where there are alligators. Not Asheville, which is leftist and crime-ridden. We are probably moving to Hendersonville in a year or two.
I’m trying to figure out the difference between a “squatter” and a “home invader.” The latter is illegal and will result in an arrest; the former is apparently legal and will result in the arrest of the property owner who tries to stop it.
Kate, huxley,
Chattanooga, Tennessee is an interesting place. It is beautiful, geography-wise. Weather isn’t bad. It’s a gigacity and growing tech hub. Lots of young people, but old bones, characterwise. A river town. A mountain town. No state income tax.
RTF, I also hear good things about Huntsville, Alabama. All these places are Appalachian towns
Have heard that Alabama has State Income Tax and some “jurisdictions” collect local Income Taxes. I checked out Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama before just staying in Florida. 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index offers State breakdowns of taxes…
Ended up in Dixie county because Property Taxes were super low – like a third of what they were in Marion county.
Jimmy:
I think it depends on whether the home is occupied at the time (although the owner just going out to do an errand doesn’t count as unoccupied).
In the case of the story linked by the first commenter, and this one, both in NYC. The homes were changing hands after the previous owners died. Something to think about if you buy (or inherit) property, as it will inevitably be “unoccupied” for some period of time. In the Queens case, the new owner was arrested for changing the locks.
Living in Mesa, AZ, a.k.a. God’s waiting room, a lot of people here spend six months up north. One might think it fertile ground for squatters. But most people also live in a managed park or HOA. If you are not an approved resident, out you go, no matter the status of the lease.
And people would notice. They have nothing better to do.
And the cops will help. They have nothing better to do.
Huxley: I’d think New Mexico would depend on where you are. The Rio Grande valley, and northern New Mexico west of I-25, would be the places to avoid. The southwest is similar to Arizona in mood; the east side resembles west Texas. Our family had a house in the mountains above Las Vegas until fire took it a couple of years ago. I haven’t heard if my brother intends to rebuild.
Gordon Scott:
I’m in Abq within walking distance of UNM. So, pretty much Ground Zero for woke, outside Santa Fe and Taos. I am an urban sort of person. I doubt I would be that content too far from I-25. In any event I would be under a blue state government.
New Mexico, so far, has avoided descending into pure blue crazy. There’s not enough money here for people, even Democrats, to go totally crazy.
I am, or was, part of a serious political family in Santa Fe, Democrats. They disowned me and I’ve disowned them back. I was born in Santa Fe. I thought I might get back to my roots here. It hasn’t worked out.
Thanks for your concern. How’s by you?