Interesting, that philosophy of “you’re not using this property ((right at this moment/as we think it should be used/both)), ergo we have the right to just take it over w/o paying for it” – seems to be aimed against the government in rural areas, but against other private owners in more urbanized zones, i.e. a matter of targets of opportunity and seeking to win through intimidation.
Well remember, these are people who actually believe “Possession is 9/10th of the Law” to be legally true and binding.
FTR, you can actually, legally do that . . . except, you must occupy the property continuously for a specified period, varying by state – the common-law period is seven years, IIRC – and then you have to file an action to quiet title by adverse possession, in a real court with real jurisdiction – and at any time before then, you can be evicted. The law of adverse possession is meant to deal with properties whose owner of record actually has abandoned them, or with such cases as, e.g., if my property adjoins yours and I build a fence on your side of the property line and you make no fuss for seven years, I can file an action to quiet title as to the strip between the fence and the property line. One can also acquire an easement by adverse possession, e.g., if I have been crossing your property to get to my own for a specified period.
Then why is it such an unholy mess for the real homeowners to get the assholes out?
The articles make it seem there is a long, expensive court battle involved while the squatters are allowed to occupy the residence.
That’s a damn good question.
But I think it becomes a civil case with all parties claiming ownership.
Well there’s always the other extreme, where a scumbag landlord tries to kick out a tenant without going through the proper eviction process. “I’ve never rented this property before! It was a vacation home and when I returned there was a total stranger living there!” Conveniently enough, the landlord never had their tenant sign a lease, and always demanded payment in cash…
Or any number of other shitty landlord/tenant/housemate disputes.
As user_hostile said, nihilism, or, to quote Walter Sobchak, “Fucking Nihilists. (At least the Nazis) had an ethos.”
Because if you call the cops that some dudes are in your home, how do the cops know who has the right to be in the house and who doesn’t?
Are you the owner? OK, that’s a matter of record, they can find out if you own the house. But are the people there renting from you? A landlord can’t just decide to evict his tenants on Tuesday at 8:00 and by 8:15 the cops roll up to arrest them. Even if the tenants are behind on rent. Even if there’s no lease.
If you call the cops, and the cops show up, and you’re outside on the lawn saying those guys living in this house are trespassers, the cops will tell you to take it to court, they don’t have the authority to determine who does and who does not have the right to live in the house. Get a court order to evict them, and the cops will do it. But they won’t do it just on your say-so, because otherwise abusive landlords could have people literally thrown out on the street in the middle of the night.
Being locked out of your own house, though, is not hugely different from being thrown out by an evil landlord in the dead of the night. Except, the evil landlord has some legal standing whereas a squatter has absolutely none.
However, the squatter has changed the locks and removed your stuff (presumably including your files and records), so proving that you live there becomes a greater challenge just this afternoon – and it becomes much worse if you have been renting. There needs to be a severe penalty for creating an undue burden on a homeowner. These opportunistic parasites need to be stripped of all their rights and put on a chain gang for 20 years.
Driver’s license.
Probably not good enough. You do not have a key that fits any of the doors, and people do not always update their license right away when they move.
The sovereign citizen squatters tend to start with a toe-hold that lets them claim tenancy, or refute eviction. Once a court case is started, they drag it out. Here’s a short article on one of these sort of matters from Alberta a few years ago.
If some legal entity wants to contest the residence indicated on my driver’s license, the burden is on them to prove it.
Plus, you know, the mail arriving at that address that’s addressed to you and not to him.
The problem with this is that a “bad guy” who wants to fuck with you can now:
- File a change of address form with the DMV.
- Go by your mailbox and wait for the new license to come.
- Call the cops and have you thrown out.
As annoying as squatters can be, the proper way to handle this is to go through the courts before applying force. A drivers license doesn’t prove anything.
If his ID has my address on it, it still doesn’t establish that his residence supercedes mine; at worst, we are roommates. He can’t have anyone thrown out.
Arnold Law Firm is doing a bang up job defending Ammon Bundy. Well, not in court, they’re not really doing much of anything to help his case, but they’re sure putting in a lot of hours on their Facebook page.
Last week they posted information identifying the Facebook page of an FBI agent who was involved in Malheur and had said a couple slightly immature things like “these hicks are just out here trying to get away from their heavy wives.” ALF asked Bundy supporters for more information on the FBI agent. This is a strange request. If a defense attorney has questions about a law enforcement officer’s actions, there are official avenues he can use to pursue those questions. There is really no explanation for ALF’s post other than he was trying to dox an FBI agent.
Two hours later, someone finally did a reverse google image search and found that all the images on his site were collected from around the net and the “FBI agent’s” profile photo was of an MMA fighter. The Facebook page was fake. That post and all the replies were quickly deleted from ALF’s facebook page.
Today (buckle your seat belts), they posted another CROWDSOURCING ACTION ALERT to Bundy supporters. The issue they were seeking to determine was this:
In January, Native Americans were quoted in an article saying they were afraid that occupiers could sell Native American artifacts from the refuge. During a tour of Malheur in Feb, Arnold Law recorded a federal employee (who didn’t seem to know much) stating that he hadn’t heard of any artifacts that were missing. Arnold Law’s CROWDSOURCING ACTION ALERT to the Bundy supporters was to help find whether the government had ever released any statement saying that Bundy et al had not stolen any artifacts.
Having found the government had not said anything on the subject, Arnold posted “Hyperbole finally debunked” “Government Admits to No Refuge Artifacts Missing” and insinuated that the government had been quick to accuse but slow to exonerate Bundy.
Of course, none of this makes sense, but this is Ammon Bundy’s attorney in action.
So, if the cops show up at your house and someone is outside with a drivers license that says he lives there also, the cops should do what, exactly? Force you to let him in because you must be roommates and you don’t have the authority to throw him out? How do you expect the police to differentiate between cases where a roommate is being a dick and changed the locks vs someone has gotten themselves a fraudulent drivers license?
A drivers license is evidence that supports the claim that someone lives there, but it is not proof of anything. Currently, my drivers license doesn’t have my current address on it, because I recently moved and I don’t have the new one yet. But it would be absurd if that were sufficient to get the police to grant me access to my old address. The way to establish ownership or right to reside in a house is through the courts, which can examine all the evidence and issue a ruling. Absent that ruling, the police should only make sure that the situation is safe and not change who currently has possession of the house.
Why get the courts involved? I recall a case in which the legal homeowner bet the squatter that he could throw a hoola hoop onto the chimney, in which case the squatter agreed to leave.
Well, of course it makes sense. The Bundy’s are Mormons, who worship a deity that lives on the distant planet Kolob. The first “flying saucers” were spotted over Mt. Rainier by a pilot named Kenneth Arnold. And, of course, ALF was a popular sitcom about an extraterrestrial muppet.
Connect the dot, people.
(It is microdot – just put it on your tongue and you will understand.)