Why don’t you stop playing semantic tricks and tell me how the Texas law I have quoted would allow someone to be charged for forcibly removing trespassers from their residence?
Or will you find another case that bears no relation to the OP and discussion so far?
Seriously dude, I have asked for evidence for your ridiculous claim. You have utterly unable to provide any. You have proven that you are utterly ignorant that such situations have occurred repeatedly in Texas in the past 2 years and required a court finding to resolve. You have proven that you are utterly incapable of reading the plain text of a law. You have absolutely no legal expertise.
At this stage I am just going to ignore you. If anyone is stupid enough to believe what you post, that;s their look out. And God help them if the follow your advice and start shooting tenants because of purely civil residency disputes.
ETA: This is too hilarious to let pass:
FFS, the law says quite clearly that it only applies to someone “in lawful possession of land”. In the case of squatters the owner is, by definition, *not *in lawful possession of the land. If he were in lawful possession of the land then the squatters could not be squatting. He is the lawful owner, but not n lawful possession.
According to your ludicrous and tortured reasoning, this law allows any Texas landlord to shoot any tenant for parking cars on the lawn or or for breaking the windows, provided he orders them to leave first. After all, the landlord is "“in lawful possession of land” according to you, and the tenants are trespassing on the land and unlawfully interfering with the property. :rolleyes:
You are confusing using force with shooting people unprovoked, I never said immediately shoot anyone.
You keep saying tenant, then you posted a link to a case about a home SALE gone wrong, and now you are talking about landlords shooting renters which is not the situation described in the OP:
A person returns to their primary residence to find people inside who they have never met before and had no dealings with, the people claim they own the house.
Would it be illegal IN TEXAS to tell them to leave immediately, and if they refuse to force them to leave using force or at gunpoint?
If they have a claim to lawful possession of the house under Texas’ vacant possession law then they have lawful possession and you do not. You have lost possession, though you may retain ownership. You may attempt to have possession reinstated through court order but until that happens you do not have possession.
Even if you lawfully own property and lost possession through theft, it is an offence to attempt to regain possession through threat of force. Ordering someone to move against their will from property which is not in your possession is is kidnapping or some variant thereof and will also see you jailed. You need to get a a court to reinstate your possession, you can’t reinstate it through force in Texas or anywhere else in the western world. Except in a minority of odd circumstances, attempting to *regain * (rather than retain) possession of stolen property through the threat of force is illegal.
Ownership is not possession. But that is my last contribution to this nonsense. You have no legal qualifications, no ability to comprehend written law and no evidence to support your outrageous claims.
In the case you posted that happened in Texas a deposit was paid and the key given to the squatters, they had permission from the owner to occupy the property. They were tenants.
Someone who breaks into your home while you are away never has permission from the owner to enter and is a trespasser.
I will admit I should not have said it would be impossible to be charged, you can be charged for anything at anytime. I was speaking casually but it was the wrong way to phrase it.
I can’t help myself. It’s so fucking frustrating when people argue a position about things that they have absolutely knowledge or understanding of. I’m not any kind of lawyer, but this is so fucking obvious.
It means that the other person is trespassing and preventing you from utilising the land. It means that they are there without your consent and that they have no legal grounds for being there. Moreover the law only applies if you never lost possession of the property. Which leads us to…
cf
Provided the property has been abandoned, or the squatters reasonably believe that is has been abandoned for that time, then they are operating within a recognized privilege at law and you can not simply declare them trespassers. It is now a civil dispute.
Given that squatters moved in with the intent to inhabit, this has no bearing at all on the case. Intent isn’t some incidental thing in law, it’s major fact that has to be proven. Even if someone moves in, lives there and months or years later sells all the furniture, they probably aren’t committing burglary under this statute because the prosecutor could never prove that they entered with the *intent *to commit theft. The only clear intent upon moving in was to inhabit.
You have guaranteed that someone in Texas can shoot squatters with no legal ramifications. You have provided no support for that, and all the evidence you have provided requires that the squatters have no legal right to be on the premises, do not even have *unlawful *possession of the premises and that they entered with the intent of burglary and not simply inhabiting. All that needs to be true before you have a hope in hell of getting away with that shit.
Even then I doubt it would fly unless you shot them as soon as you found out about it. Once you talk to them through the door and they claim a legal right to reside, you have inadvertently established that possession is in dispute and entered into civil territory.
Courts generally take a dim view of people resolving civil disputes with shotguns. Even in Texas.
I never said you could legally shoot trespassers, I did claim you could order someone to leave your house at gunpoint if they refuse to or use other force to remove them. I don’t advise anyone to shoot trespassers except in self defense, my snark about the Joe Horn case was dismay actually.
I was bugged by jtgain’s blanket claims which are not even true in the UK:
Even in the UK no one is going to arrest you for breaking down the door to your own house.
It seems that the homeowners got a judgment of eviction against the squatters and the squatters were able to delay the eviction by filing bankruptcy.
As a side note, it seems bizarre to me that an obviously phony deed gives so much protection to these jokers. Bankruptcy or not, the police should politely explain to them that they were scammed and that if they are not out in 24 hours they will be arrested.
So you can threaten them with a gun, and you can use force to move them while holding a gun on them. And if they attack you, you can’t shoot them.
That makes no sense at all. Either you have a legal right to threaten them with firearms and use force to remove them, or you do not.
Once again, i am asking for evidence for this claim that you can use force to evict squatters who have occupied your property after a prolonged absence on your part.
I only ask for the form of it. You clearly have no such evidence and are simply making this up.
Yes, they are.
It is ''illegal to threaten or use violence to enter a property where someone is present and opposes the entry". That is from your own website.
You are exempted from that if you were living in the house at the time the squatters took possession, but the definition of living there is vague and if you have been gone more than a week or so the police won’t act without a court order. IOW if you were on an extended vacation and thus living elsewhere, you are SOL.
I think we all agree that you can legally break down your own door if you come home from work one afternoon and find squatters in there. That is a clear case where you never lost possession. But if you have been gone on holidays for weeks or months, you don’t have any clear legal right to break down your own door and may well be arrested for doing so.
But people taking over someone else’s home without permission generally have a much, much dimmer view of having a shotgun in their face. A few minutes of face time with a shotgun beats months of legal wrangling, hands down. Sooo…for a factual answer, sometimes you have to work outside of the system (see shotgun reference).
And this from a bleeding heart liberal.
In an armageddon type situation (see: numerous zombie movies)…the rules change…but zombies…unlikely. Otherwise, taking someone elses’ home as your own is just friggin wrong and, if you try to do that, I’d be more concerned with what Smith & Wesson rules rather than some Judge Judy whan-a-be (even if backed by the laws of the land).
Seriously, if there is a dead body on a property without a mortgage, lease agreement, name on utility bills, etc…I’m thinking the dead body is gonna have a harder time proving (and usually dead bodies don’t try to prove squat) anything and will probably (pre-dead) try to avoid being said dead body…thus resulting in very, very few said dead bodies.
Again, sometimes the best course of action may be working outside (or understanding) the system. True, there are a couple court cases that suggest otherwise but those couple of cases made the news because they are such an extreme exception.
It makes no sense because I never said it, if you are attacked you should defend yourself.
I never claimed anything about a prolonged absence.
If the property is not your residence or you are not a DRO or PIO you can’t force your way onto the property, if it is and you are a DRO or PIO you can.
The last part of your post I agree with completely.
In the court case in Texas they not only had permission to enter the house which was not a residence but were given a key by the owner and had paid a deposit.
Which is nothing like trespassers breaking in and refusing to leave.
Once you give permission for someone to enter or reside on your property even temporarily the situation changes completely.
You guaranteed that in Texas someone can not be charged criminally for ordering squatters out or changing the locks on them. You made this guarantee for all squatters, whether they arrived after a prolonged absence or not.
You didn’t *need *to mention a prolonged absence. You gave a *blanket *guarantee that anybody in Texas an threaten a squatter with a shotgun and physically assault them to get them to leave with no legal ramfications. That guarantee included squatters who inhabited after a prolonged absence by the owner.
Are you now recanting this ridiculous position and admitting that people in Texas *can *be charged criminally for ordering squatters out or changing the locks on them?
And that is the tricky part: when does a building cease to be your residence? How long can you live elsewhere and still claim residence? This is still unclear under British law. That is why you are incorrect when you claim that “in the UK no one is going to arrest you for breaking down the door to your own house.” A house can be your own, and a place where you live and still not be your residence.
Not sure how the DA would square shooting a squatter claiming adverse possession in a case like this since they are charging the squatters with burglary and theft.
They [the DA] might file a charge against the shooter, but I would be surprised if a Texas grand jury would indict someone who came home to an emptied house and shot the squatters. Might get filed under “He needed killin’!”
A woman had an unoccupied, semi-finished home. She left the keys on the door so the electrician could enter next morning and finish the home wiring.
Electrician comes and finds 15-20 Pakistani illegal immigrants inside. The woman called the police but there was nothing they could do. She would need an eviction court order which could take months.
Frustrated, she then called Golden Dawn. They sent some of their guys and the Pakistani immigrants were out of the house in no time.
The moral of the story: If your squatters are minorities, don’t call the police. Call your local neo-nazi, white supremacy group.
The clarification I added to my first post in the thread because I assumed someone would call me on it:
You can only edit posts for 5 minutes.
You can’t be seriously be confused about the meaning of “own house”? I provide a cite from the UK government that you won’t be arrested for kicking down the door to your residence, the meaning of “own house” immediately after that could only be interpreted as your residence.
And I do not know when a house ceases to be your residence, I assume the obvious meaning would be if you no longer reside there. I have seen claims in a few articles that if a trespasser can manage to remain undetected for one week they cease to be a trespasser and gain rights. I have no clue if that is true, I have not been able to find a cite.