Hey everyone. I’m new to this forum so forgive me in advance if I post anything that’s out of the ordinary. Anyhow, to my point.
My best friend just bought a house in central Florida about a year ago and he couldn’t be happier. Loves the neighborhood and actually gets along with most of his neighbors. However, as of a few days ago, there seems to be some unwanted new tenants.
About 4 houses down from his, a family of about 7 people “squatted” on a foreclosed house. Apparently they broke into the back, moved in, and changed the locks. They also had the electricity turned on as well. BTW, these new people are what he would refer to as “ghetto as hell”. Anyhow, when he noticed them living there, he called the police and gave them the scoop. When the police arrived, he accompanied them up to the front door and confronted one of the members of the family. The lady who answered the door said that some guy in a bar offered to lease the house and she pulled out some bogus lease agreement to show the cops. At that point, the cops could do nothing and left. According to the laws in Florida, once a house has been squatted on, it’s up to the owner/bank to file a 30 day vacate notice just to get the ball rolling on getting the squatters out. It seems that my friend would not like to wait that long.
So he calls me up for some advise and we discuss a few ideas. I looked up the code enforcement for his city and found a few items of interest. He seems more inclined to work along the lines of disabling their A/C unit outside the house. Now I’m all about and eye for an eye when it comes to dealing with folks who are doing illegal activities, my question to everyone here is: 1) Has anyone had to deal with this themselves & what actions did you take? and 2) If you were thinking of performing any unscrupulous acts against the squatters, what kind of creative things would you suggest?
Why is it any of your friend’s business? I understand that he doesn’t want riff-raff living just up the road, but it’s not his property to deal with. And it’s certainly not a good idea to ‘disable’ the air-con unit…might find himself up on charges for trespass and damages.
Legally, I think your best bet is going to be to figure out who owns the property and inform them. They probably don’t have to give them 30 days to vacate if the lease papers are fake (and not from the owner). The owner can go to the police and have the people forcibly removed for trespassing and possibly charged with B&E. I’m guessing the owner (be it and actual owner or a bank) would probably like to know that there’s people squatting on (in?) their property.
ETA, I’d also suggest that your friend makes no contact with them, otherwise they may retaliate when they get kicked out.
Contact the bank. They should be pretty motivated to get the process started. Report any code violations such as unkempt yard, too many people living in the house, safety violations, etc. Call the police for any illegal activity.
The lady could be somewhat innocent. It could be that the lady did sign a lease agreement with the guy from the bar. Maybe he broke in, changed the locks, and is now leasing it illegally.
In any case, your friend should not step foot on the property. Even if they are there illegally, that doesn’t mean he can do something illegal and be immune from prosecution. He can get arrested just as easily as they can.
If they haven’t harmed your friend or threatened him in any way, why is it so urgent to get them out before it’s dealt with legally? It sounds like your friend is itching for a fight.
Other than moving into the house, have they done anything to you (yea it’s your friend) to make you need to have them removed?
Maybe they’ll fix up the place, you never know.
Anyway it’s out of your hands, the cops know about it and if you do anything stupid like vandalize the house or terrorize them in any way, the police will have a good first person to look at.
How does one find out that the people who moved into an empty house are squatters?
All things considered, unless the squatters are disturbing my life, I’d rather have them there than the house sitting vacant. Vacant houses attract vermin and vandals, and deteriorate over time.
I know, I am trying to buy a house and I see what sitting vacant with no heat or air conditioning does to a house. Thieves break in and steal all the copper plumbing, teens break in and tear things up and spray paint the walls.
There are scams out there where people are breaking into vacant houses and either renting them, or setting up rent-to-own deals. A friend of mine almost got taken in by one until something in the lease didn’t sound right. He checked it out with a realtor and found out the person offering the house for sale isn’t the owner of the house.
My realtor told me that she gets notices several times a week warning of these scams.
All these vacant foreclosures sitting around, all kinds of homeless people out there, it might not be such a bad idea to start pairing them up.
Actually I blame the banks for holding onto these properties instead of just putting them up for auction and let the market set the price. Ok, they might have only gotten pennies on the dollar for what the house is worth. It was their stupid fault for giving someone a mortgage where they could not pay.
I hear there are neighborhoods all over places like Florida and Arizona with street after street full of foreclosed on properties just sitting there because the bank refuses to let them be sold at auction. They are hoping the real estate market will come back and in the meantime the local communities miss out on the tax revenue.
So your “friend” noticed “ghetto” people moving in down the road and immediately started plotting to drive them from their new home. Is your friend in the Klan?
I assure you that no bank is holding on to a dilapidated property in the hopes that it will surge in value. It costs money to maintain an abandoned home. The more likely possibility is that the foreclosure, rehabilitation, and sale process will cost more than the home is worth.
Why on earth do would people want squatters in their neighborhood? Squatters aren’t the most savory people to begin with, after all, they’re stealing. There was in instance of some squatters in a bank-owned home in my housing development. By the time the bank got around to evicting them, they’d trashed the house. Not the kind of people I want for neighbors.
A private citizen can call the police, and the police will accompany them to another private citizens door and back them up while they “confront” them about their right to be on private property that the first private citizen has no ownership interest in?