There are countless videos online of home owners going through very stressful times in trying to get people evicted from their own property. Squatters rights have arguably enabled trespassers to take up space on certain property and refuse to leave until a court orders them out and going through that process to have them officially evicted, even though they shouldn't be there in the first place, can be a very long and even costly process.
Imagine coming back to your own home to find strangers living in it and calling the cops to have them removed but the cops say there is nothing they can do.
Even worse there are some cases where the cops arrest the owner of the home for changing the locks or trying to take matters into their own hands. It's a policy that has rightly received a great deal of criticism. You wouldn't expect this to happen in a place like the U.S. where strangers might have protection from being kicked out of a home that isn't even their own property.
The problem has escalated now to the point that some areas, like FL, are looking to revoke squatters rights.
It's a policy that many are likely in favor of so will we see more regions follow in revoking squatters rights as well to try and address this issue?
How quickly might we see things resolve if those who were being squatted on were political leaders themselves? Surely they would grasp the severity of the unjust situation if it happened to them, so why then is there such a problem still for so many around the country who have to go through this and who are still going through this today? For those who are not familiar with this issue they might be shocked at how difficult it can be to get strangers out of your own home who aren't supposed to be there.
Here in South Africa, the Squatters' Rights Act also is a huge problem.
It's gotten to the point where syndicates are now taking over homes while homeowners are away; they then let the rooms out to 'tenants!'
My late brother had a tenant who paid the first 2 months' rent, then stopped. He passed away during that period at the age of 42. The property was left to my Mom, me, and my 2 brothers. She refused to move out, and referred us to her lawyer who arrogantly told us about the squatters' act, and that we would be arrested if we tried to remove her belongings from the apartment!
She stayed on rent-free for 7 months while my late brother's estate was being wound up. We sold the property, and she would only move out after we signed a document absolving her of the rental debt! We happily signed it as the law is on the side of opportunists like this woman!
This is skewed justice!
PS excuse all the exclamation marks, but it's a sore point, my brother was in a state over this which indirectly led to his untimely death.
It's about time! Squatters should have zero rights to anything they are squatting in.
you can hire a house sitter if you are still worried about it
And if your sitter sublets your property?
You can only trust trustworthy people.
I have never personally heard of someone subletting a property they were sitting on. Sounds like a scare tactic to attack ownership of private property. I can assure you, if a sitter isn't staying in the property, it is because they have somewhere else, they would rather stay. A trusted sitter would either subcontract this work out to another trusted sitter or manage the responsibility of care between the properties. Sitting is a very niche community and it can be difficult to become established. Trustworthy people are hard to come by in a society that glorifies pride and greed. Believe it or not some people still have real values, but I understand the reluctance and projection of fear. Someone who lacks trust would probably be reassured by having security cameras in the home which is completely acceptable. I have been pet sitting, house sitting and plant sitting professionally for 6 years now, and I love this type of travel lifestyle.
The legal adjudication, and the legislation judged, has radically evolved gradually over recent decades. Suddenly squatters are claiming real property in droves, and the legal landscape that enables this scourge didn't arise overnight, but over decades. The concatenation of prosecutors declining to press charges, judges ruling in favor of squatters, and legislatures amending legal codes to favor usurpers has emerged from gradual and incremental evolution through pressures from every vector over time.
In the late 90s I began renting out property, but the convergence of legislation favoring tenants with the crisis in financing real property purchases that arose in response to the 2008 financial crisis suddenly created dramatically reduced returns in that market. The increasing vacancy of commercial properties in urban areas is accompanied by tent cities and gangs of looters. Frisco is looking at the urban flight of ~half the businesses in the core downtown area as the city council makes it impossible for retailers to secure their inventories from flash looting mobs, the state legislature decriminalizes shoplifting, and prosecutors concurrently implement policies that release criminals without bail and decline to prosecute them.
The route to prosperity real property ownership has been is being closed. It appears to me that small landholders are being forced out of the market so that corporations with deep pockets can monopolize real property markets.
I haven't given up on home ownership yet, but it certainly seems far out with the current market. It's rough out there my friend. If you ever need someone you can trust, feel free to reach out! My oldest account on here is @rilo if you want to check out some of my pet sitting posts. It sounds like you live on the coast or in a highly populated area, so I am sure there are professionals close to home, but I do travel as well.
Lord help me, I can't help myself and I pitched a commercial deal tonight with a hard money guy, LOL. I appreciate your sincere and kind offer. I am sure you have to have good references, and a clientele that knows they can count on you. There are a lot of short term rentals here on the coast, and folks whose beach homes are vacant during the storms of winter, but are fully enjoyed during the summer. This sudden wave of squatters is a threat to all of them. More reliable folks are needed to secure these properties, and there is not much in the way of service providers on that front. I have done field services work for property owners out of area before, but it has not been a field that expected such workers to prevent squatters in the past, and this is a new need in that industry. You may be well situated to meet that need.
Cops are there to protect the rich from us, not to protect us from immigrants. The rich don't see much difference between poor natives or poor immigrants, and neither do cops. More than a decade ago I ran up against landlord tenant law wielded by fractious tenants, and that was the end of my landlord career. Sadly, contract law makes real property sales and purchases no less disadvantageous to the industrious poor, and disfavor property owners unable to fund the constant flood of paper well-heeled legal teams can fling at litigants, filing motion after motion, dragging out suits for years.
The game is rigged. The more you have, the more you get.
Thanks!
Regardless if other follow or not, this problem looks like a good case for Flash Shelton and his https://squatterhunters.com initiative.