A recent article detailed a house sold near Washington D.C. that came with a squatter in the basement. Indeed, the seller was clear that there was a squatter in the basement and it would be up to the buyer to deal with that. The seller is apparently a frail, older man whose family said they did not have the money to deal with evicting a squatter. Apparently the squatter was a cleaning lady who they old man said could stay in his basement for a bit but now refuses to leave. There is no lease, no money being exchanged for living there.
Apparently, to get the squatter out, these people need to go to court and go through a whole process. Indeed, in Chicago, when there was an eviction moratorium because of COVID, a woman could not get squatters out of her property at all.
Why isn’t this simple trespass? Call the police and tell them someone is on your property who refuses to leave and have the police drag them out.
If I visited you and you let me spend the night and then I refuse to leave do you need to go to court to get me out of your house? When is it trespass and when is it squatting?
Liberal housing laws mostly. They are designed to provide lawful tenants protection against unfair eviction. For example, if I call the police and have them throw my tenant out for unlawful trespass because I want to raise the rent before their lease ends.
The police have no idea who owns the property and who is living their lawfully, so the whole “going to court” is the process by which the squatter presents their case that they have a right to be there.
Like many liberal laws, it can be taken advantage of by deadbeats.
This is the key difference. The old man allowed her to make the house her domicile. That is far different than you coming over for a few beers and passing out on the couch. This lady likely got her mail forwarded, had her stuff there, etc. so there needs to be an orderly process to remove her.and give her time to make other arrangements.
Could you imagine the potential for abuse of the lady if she had nowhere else to go and the landowner held it over her head that she could be thrown out at a second’s notice?
There was an item in the news in Canada about a couple a few years ago who also owned a property in Texas. They’d go there for the winters. They decided to try renting it out for the summers to make some money.
Apparently one person got the key so they could check the place out, then moved in and wouldn’t move out. When the couple complained to police, the occupant claimed he had been given the key and so was allowed to be there. The police said that this made the issue a civil matter, not a criminal one. (Which it would be if it were a break-and-enter) so they refused to get involved.
I don’t recall the final result, but the fact that the occupant raised reasonable doubt about whether they were trespassing from the start meant the police said “leave it up to the judge”. The lack of any formal lease, but the fact that they were in fact looking for tenants at the time, made this a he-said-we-said dispute. As anyone can attest, landlord-tenant disputes are difficult to resolve and the court generally favours the tenant. Even without any rent payment, it can take months to get a judgement and then a right to evict. Without a formal agreement, how do you prove a failure to live up to an agreement?
It’s not that squatters aren’t considered to be trespassing. I’ve seen a number of news stories suggesting that owners can’t evict squatters - and in almost every case, it’s not clear that the owners ever tried to actually evict them and often not even clear that the people intentionally trespassed. For example, that Chicago news story says
Her attempts to evict the squatters didn’t go well.
but it doesn’t give any detail about these attempts , which I suspect means the attempts are limited to calling the police who aren’t going to be able to do anything if person has what appears to be a lease, appears to have been living there for some time and there aren’t any signs of a break-in. Even without a apparent lease, the police aren’t going to be able to do anything - otherwise, I could just call the police and have them remove my month-to-month tenant who has been living there for 3 years by claiming they are trespassing. That’s not something the police are going to decide on the spot , as they would be able to if there were signs of illegal entry. It’s actually possible that the “squatter” believes she has a lease, as it is not unheard of for scammers to “rent” or even “sell” property they don’t own. It doesn’t mention the owner actually going to court and losing the eviction case. The article about the house being sold actually says that the owner allowed her to move in three years ago and suggests he has never actually tried to evict her, as there is a mention that the family can’t afford to hire an attorney to work on an eviction.
How would you like it if the police showed up at your house on the say so of your landlord and could dump you unceremoniously onto the street and arrest you if you refused to leave.
You: “But I have this lease”
Landlord: “It’s a forgery!
Copper: “Out, now!”
Correct. It is a trespass to do what these “squatters” are doing. But as you say, the police are not lawyers. If one person says “Yeah, I really don’t belong here, you got me” then they will tell that person to leave. But if they hear two plausible stories, they are not on the spot civil judges; they will refer the parties to court. It is a pain the ass for the innocent homeowner, but as has been said in the OP’s example, what is to stop the OP from saying that it is his home and not mine and get ME thrown out of the house? The police don’t know anything at that very moment unless there are obvious signs.
I’ve had the problem with renters that don’t pay. The police just said go to the court house and get an eviction kit. I did, and it was a routine operation. But, it did take time and I eventually would have had to go to court. But, in every case the renter gave up and either paid or left before it cost them money for a lawyer.
My lawyer and the police advised me to be very careful. Don’t threaten or lock the renter out of the house. The law is very friendly to the renter. It generally worked out OK. Except for one family that totally trashed the house before they moved out. Ripped the doors off the hinges, knocked holes in the dry wall and tore up the floor tiles. The police said I was lucky they didn’t steal the copper wire and plumbing. The insurance company said it was just a life style issue. That renter is why landlords are assholes.
The problem I have with evicting squatters through the courts is it gives validity to them being legal occupants of the home, and I know that’s a philosophical point more than a legal one.
What is the penalty for squatting? Jail time? Community service? Do I get any recompence for my loss of property rights? Legal costs for the “eviction”? Back rent? I.e. money I will never see?
No. There are landlords who have a singnificant number of units who will check records–and this will be true for them. But there are huge numbers of very small landlords who simply judge on the basis of the potential renter simply appearing to be an OK person.
In rural New Mexico there doesn’t seem to be any. That’s why citizens, the State and the Feds are very alert for potential squatters. Many families in New Mexico have occupied land, since as far back as the early 1800s, to which they do not hold title. The only opportunity to take the land is when they abandon or try to sell it.
If a landlord evicts a tenant who has a proper lease that is paid then make it so the tenant can sue their pants off.
If you have a lease and can show you have paid per the terms of the lease (easy enough) and your landlord locks you out then the landlord should be sued and have to pay court costs, attorney fees, moving costs, pain and suffering, lost income (maybe) and so on.
If the person is a squatter they have none of that. No lease. No record of payments. Nothing. They are a trespasser.
I do not see why saying you can live in my basement for a few days means you never have to leave. If you are my guest and stay in my place am I now stuck with you if you refuse to leave?
A friend of mine has quite a few rentals. A while back six of his renters got together and simply stopped paying rent. He couldn’t afford to send his lawyer after all six at once, so he started the long process of evicting them. Five of them got off with a few months free rent and then moved. The last guy waited until the last minute before he had to go to court and offered some cash to stay in the house.
With the recent low interest rates, rentals offer a good ROI, but they are a pain in the ass.
And the judge will have to agree with you on that - not the police attending a routine call one day. A verbal contract is still a contract - and a professional or opportunistic squatter will claim to have an agreement. Thus, it becomes a civil court matter.
I assume the standard common law “squatters’ rights” (adverse possession) does not apply there?
Try to imagine the concern of a person who has a spotty record of making rental payments, if any, to the fact that they will have to find new accommodation when their clock runs out on their current non-rental. If they were worried about their reputation they would try to do things right, etc.
As mentioned - it becomes a civil dispute - so you take the person to court. Then you get a judgement. then you find out where they work. Then you garnishee their wages. Notice the flaws in each of these steps when that person has no money, no job, and doesn’t care. Not to mention your legal costs.
When I was looking for a new house many years ago, I landed on a discussion board the was about housing, but had quickly degenerated into a complaints board by small landlords in Canada, especially the Toronto area. The general complaint was that the tenant tribunal has degenerated into an advocate for tenants (using the word loosely). It could take months to evict a tenant- months to get a judgement the tenant was in arrears and then months more to take that judgement and get an eviction order. The tenant could screw up the process by paying a month’s rent, thus resetting the process and requiring the complaint to start all over. There was discussion over whether there were legal issues with a small landlord blacklist/reference system (not sure if that carried on).
Of course, landlords were no better. One tactic with small landlords - you were entitled to give a tenant short notice to allow a family member to move into your property - so one landlord was guilty of having tenants move out, son would live there 6 months and “pay” a higher rent without objection, and now the apartment could be rented out to new tenants at the higher rate, thus bypassing the rent control limits.
general conclusion - being a landlord, especially a conscientious one, was not worth it.
So, if I come to your home at your invitation, have some tea and snacks and then refuse to leave you are stuck with me? All I have to do is tell the police who come that I have been living there and I have a lease?