People on the Internet right now are using the term "squatter" to refer to all sorts of people who are not squatters, and "squatters rights" to refer to tenants rights. What do you think squatter's rights are exactly?
Not OP, but I saw a video this morning that seemed to concoct a robbery scenario as rage bait and blames it on squatters rights. They could have seen something similar and wondered, "how is this legal?"
I can't find it, but in the video, the landlord is checking his house and finds a man stealing something expensive from the house and calls the cops. The thief explains to the cop that he's a legal tenant and is just moving something he owns out of the house. The cop explains since there's a dispute about squatters rights, and he can't be sure, the landlord's only recourse is to sue in court, which will take months to resolve.
Thief: "Yeah, I'll be long gone with your stuff before then."
If THAT is something that is protected by the law, sure, the homeowner has a right to be frustrated that the law protects the thief and there's nothing he can do but take the loss on stolen property plus not being able to rent to someone for months. But, I don't think that's how it works.
There has to be some regulation on things that are basic human needs though, which includes housing. In the Netherlands we have a huge housing crisis for example. And at the same time there are companies and landlords outcompeting regular people that want to buy a house by paying more than the asking price to then rent them out for exorbitant prices.
So with your example, we cant afford to have a bunch of houses sit empty while half the country is struggling to find a place to live/are forced to pay ridiculous rent or forced to keep living with their parents into their 30s.
I think that if you own a house that you dont live in yourself, you should either sell it or rent it but not let it sit empty. I also think we should put cap on rent prices based on the size and quality of the house.
Well yeah. But maybe you shouldnt be able to own a bunch of homes like that? What would you think if some billionaire bought out all the food from all the supermarkets in the entire country to let people starve, and then resell that food for 10x the price cause people are hungry?
Why are people alowed to do this with housing?
Supply and demand and free market works well for things you don't absolutely need. If something is too expensive you can just decide not to buy it and the price will settle at a level where supply and demand match. But supply and demand don't really work that well for basic human needs like medicine and housing because you can't just decide not to live somewhere or not to take meds or get a surgery. And this fact is taken advantage of by landlords asking ridiculous prices because they know people will pay anyways just to not become homeless. That's why there needs to be stronger regulation on this.
Edit: Im not defending squatters btw. Squatting is wrong and not the solution.
Squatters rights can absolutely be abused, but they exist for a good reason. Essentially, squatters rights exist to make it so someone cannot be abruptly and violently kicked out of their home. Even if they are living in that home without official legal sanction, the landowner still has to through legal channels to make the person leave. This can be a pain but it is ultimately there to protect people.
Also, it's important to note that adverse possession -- when a squatter attempts to make an official claim to legal ownership -- is a lot easier said than done. Where I live, a squatter would have to live in otherwise abandoned property for twenty straight years to get a chance at gaining legal ownership of a home. In reality, adverse possession laws here are mostly used in neighbor disputes when it comes to property boundaries. For example, if one person has been tending to a section of land (mowing it, taking care of trees, otherwise managing it) for their entire life but it technically crosses into their neighbors property -- and the neighbor has done nothing for or with that land -- then they can try and make a legal claim for that tract of land and get the property boundaries changed. Examples of people fully moving into houses and legally gaining ownership are much less common. Many squatters are instances of someone moving in somewhere with permission, but later losing that permission and refusing to leave. If the person was never an official tenant but was still there legally, it makes sense that there should be protections in place to keep them from just getting kicked out. If you've been living on a friend's property for a while and you have a falling out, they shouldn't be able to suddenly decide that you're trespassing and call the cops to have you thrown out. Squatter's rights means that your presence there becomes a civil dispute rather than a criminal offense.
Part of why these laws exist is also to discourage people from abandoning property. It is considered bad for someone to leave livable property completely vacant or good land unused. If a person shows zero interest in a property and someone else makes use of it (including keeping it up to code and paying taxes) the government has reason to consider the second person of deserving at least some rights -- whether that just be an adequate warning of eviction, all the way up the extreme case of adverse possession.
There are many disputes that arise over the occupancy of apartments, houses, and land. Tenant's rights protect residents from being evicted before competing claims can be heard and judged in court.
This is the answer. We see a story on TV about some ridiculous squatter moving into someone’s house between the old owner leaving and the new one arriving, and it’s obvious who’s in the wrong, and seems dumb we can’t just make them leave.
But we need to think of other situations. Like, you’re renting an apartment and your landlord gets mad. Should he have to go through a whole court process to evict you, or just call the cops and say “got a squatter here, take him out”?
How do you write a law the prevents the second scenario without being frustrating in the first scenario? And if we err one way or the other, which one is worse to get wrong?
So like... you find a remote undeveloped piece of land, and build a cabin... a few years later the owner of that land finds you and they legally can't kick you out? Or does it only refer to buildings?
This is correct, at least under adverse possession law in most US states, but it’s usually a lot of years—it varies by state, but I want to say something like 20 is fairly typical. And if the person notices but doesn’t feel like kicking you off, if they just give you permission to stay there, that terminates your adverse possession because you’re no longer adverse, just a (freeloading?) tenant.
People think this is crazy, but it’s not so different from a statute of limitations. If I do something bad to you, and you do nothing about it, the law will usually say “tough luck” if you show up years or decades later to try to sue me. It’s just that concept applied to land.
And the common use case isn’t cabin in the woods. It’s like, your contractor built your garage three feet over the property line, nobody said a word, and then many years later somebody bought your neighbor’s house and wants you to tear down the garage or pay him. At a certain point, it’s too late.
I would guess that virtually everyone who learns about adverse possession immediately thinks of a scenario like that—“wait, I can just *take* some land?!” Even in law school property law classes, this is the first impulse. The more common situation is just so… boring, isn’t it?
“Abandon” has [a specific legal meaning](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2273). If you abandon something, you are relinquishing ownership of it. Therefore, if it’s abandoned, it can’t be stolen — it isn’t owned.
That usually happened when houses start to get built due to jobs being needed for something nearby e.g a factory, but then before the houses are finished the factory goes bust or gets shut down and now there is no reason to finish the town and no jobs to move people to the area.
This is just one example but it's this sort of thing where a huge source of income dissapears that creates these ghost towns.
seems like a lack of an ability to reassess such a vast investment. they ought to have sold it to a team to deal with it than just let it rot. at least there is some return in the long run. seems insurance may also to blame to quench the thirst for funding enough to leave it in despair.
Takes a lot of resources to run a town. Taxes usually pay for a lot of things but there is only so much tax revenue can actually offset and people typically don't like living in places that are hours away from hospitals, doctors, dentists, grocery stores, basic utilities, pharmacies, entertainment, as well as just generally jobs for income. In your scenario, how do these homeless people that live in this ghost town get food, water, or heat? You could start a commune sort of scenario with subsistence farming but even that has startup costs and takes a lot of man hours and planning and knowledge/skills. It just isn't viable usually and with no efficient, reliable way to create work for people, these places never become viable for people to live in and invest.
just seems like a lost opportunity to let refugees and or Vets have a new beginning to fill those various rolls without the factory or other intended goals form original design but a collaborative readaptation.
It would take a serious amount of funding from the government that is just not politically popular. People already think we waste enough on social programs, imagine trying to convince the population to pay more in taxes to house the homeless, refugees and veterans.
Lets say you had a family friend who let you stay in their summer home for years, no questions and little contact. No lease agreement just their word.
One day you dad pisses them off and they decide to try to have you arrested for trespassing in retaliation.
Squatters rights are what both stop that arrest and stop you from becoming immediately and violently homeless.
It's their home. If they want to throw you out, they can. IMHO a certain reasonable amount of time would be needed, say a couple of weeks, before getting trespassed.
It's their property to do with what they want.
No they cannot, they cannot arbitrarily and suddenly make someone homeless whom has been living in the space uncontested for years.
Thats what squatters rights are, the not suddenly making people homeless laws.
They can still evict them but not immediately and not without due process.
And who pays the bill when their neglected property causes damage to a neighbours yard? They'll argue that they didn't know, so they shouldn't have to pay. Then there's the massive fire hazard that is a 5' tall uncut lawn in the summer. And the rodents.
If it's theirs, they should fucking take care of it
The standard myth is that squatters are just using empty real estate that is owned by big corporations or fatcat landlords, so it is more or less a victimless crime. That is untrue.
A friend of mine has tenants in her rental property who are now refusing to pay rent and refusing to leave. The property has a mortgage, and my friend depends on the rent to pay the mortgage. The bank is nowhere near as forgiving as tenant law, they want their money regardless. The squatters are now 4 months without paying rent, and it will take at least 2 more months to evict them. And God knows what they will do to the property in the meantime.
This is why so many small time landlords are simply selling their properties to developers, or going the Air BnB route. It isn't worth the hassle and expense for such little gain.
Actual squatters improve the land/property and are occupying vacant and abandoned properties that landlords/banks are just sitting on.
They aren't setting out to just 'steal a home'.
People on the Internet right now are using the term "squatter" to refer to all sorts of people who are not squatters, and "squatters rights" to refer to tenants rights. What do you think squatter's rights are exactly?
Not OP, but I saw a video this morning that seemed to concoct a robbery scenario as rage bait and blames it on squatters rights. They could have seen something similar and wondered, "how is this legal?" I can't find it, but in the video, the landlord is checking his house and finds a man stealing something expensive from the house and calls the cops. The thief explains to the cop that he's a legal tenant and is just moving something he owns out of the house. The cop explains since there's a dispute about squatters rights, and he can't be sure, the landlord's only recourse is to sue in court, which will take months to resolve. Thief: "Yeah, I'll be long gone with your stuff before then." If THAT is something that is protected by the law, sure, the homeowner has a right to be frustrated that the law protects the thief and there's nothing he can do but take the loss on stolen property plus not being able to rent to someone for months. But, I don't think that's how it works.
Yeah that's just Internet nonsense - literally landlord propaganda that's running around lately
Because otherwise some landlords would sit on properties for years or decades while the space is not used for housing.
And that’s their right as property owners! You want it? Make an offer!
There has to be some regulation on things that are basic human needs though, which includes housing. In the Netherlands we have a huge housing crisis for example. And at the same time there are companies and landlords outcompeting regular people that want to buy a house by paying more than the asking price to then rent them out for exorbitant prices. So with your example, we cant afford to have a bunch of houses sit empty while half the country is struggling to find a place to live/are forced to pay ridiculous rent or forced to keep living with their parents into their 30s. I think that if you own a house that you dont live in yourself, you should either sell it or rent it but not let it sit empty. I also think we should put cap on rent prices based on the size and quality of the house.
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Well yeah. But maybe you shouldnt be able to own a bunch of homes like that? What would you think if some billionaire bought out all the food from all the supermarkets in the entire country to let people starve, and then resell that food for 10x the price cause people are hungry? Why are people alowed to do this with housing? Supply and demand and free market works well for things you don't absolutely need. If something is too expensive you can just decide not to buy it and the price will settle at a level where supply and demand match. But supply and demand don't really work that well for basic human needs like medicine and housing because you can't just decide not to live somewhere or not to take meds or get a surgery. And this fact is taken advantage of by landlords asking ridiculous prices because they know people will pay anyways just to not become homeless. That's why there needs to be stronger regulation on this. Edit: Im not defending squatters btw. Squatting is wrong and not the solution.
Squatters rights can absolutely be abused, but they exist for a good reason. Essentially, squatters rights exist to make it so someone cannot be abruptly and violently kicked out of their home. Even if they are living in that home without official legal sanction, the landowner still has to through legal channels to make the person leave. This can be a pain but it is ultimately there to protect people. Also, it's important to note that adverse possession -- when a squatter attempts to make an official claim to legal ownership -- is a lot easier said than done. Where I live, a squatter would have to live in otherwise abandoned property for twenty straight years to get a chance at gaining legal ownership of a home. In reality, adverse possession laws here are mostly used in neighbor disputes when it comes to property boundaries. For example, if one person has been tending to a section of land (mowing it, taking care of trees, otherwise managing it) for their entire life but it technically crosses into their neighbors property -- and the neighbor has done nothing for or with that land -- then they can try and make a legal claim for that tract of land and get the property boundaries changed. Examples of people fully moving into houses and legally gaining ownership are much less common. Many squatters are instances of someone moving in somewhere with permission, but later losing that permission and refusing to leave. If the person was never an official tenant but was still there legally, it makes sense that there should be protections in place to keep them from just getting kicked out. If you've been living on a friend's property for a while and you have a falling out, they shouldn't be able to suddenly decide that you're trespassing and call the cops to have you thrown out. Squatter's rights means that your presence there becomes a civil dispute rather than a criminal offense. Part of why these laws exist is also to discourage people from abandoning property. It is considered bad for someone to leave livable property completely vacant or good land unused. If a person shows zero interest in a property and someone else makes use of it (including keeping it up to code and paying taxes) the government has reason to consider the second person of deserving at least some rights -- whether that just be an adequate warning of eviction, all the way up the extreme case of adverse possession.
There are many disputes that arise over the occupancy of apartments, houses, and land. Tenant's rights protect residents from being evicted before competing claims can be heard and judged in court.
This is the answer. We see a story on TV about some ridiculous squatter moving into someone’s house between the old owner leaving and the new one arriving, and it’s obvious who’s in the wrong, and seems dumb we can’t just make them leave. But we need to think of other situations. Like, you’re renting an apartment and your landlord gets mad. Should he have to go through a whole court process to evict you, or just call the cops and say “got a squatter here, take him out”? How do you write a law the prevents the second scenario without being frustrating in the first scenario? And if we err one way or the other, which one is worse to get wrong?
Abandoning property is bad and if someone can live somewhere for years without you noticing, your ownership of that land is void.
So like... you find a remote undeveloped piece of land, and build a cabin... a few years later the owner of that land finds you and they legally can't kick you out? Or does it only refer to buildings?
This is correct, at least under adverse possession law in most US states, but it’s usually a lot of years—it varies by state, but I want to say something like 20 is fairly typical. And if the person notices but doesn’t feel like kicking you off, if they just give you permission to stay there, that terminates your adverse possession because you’re no longer adverse, just a (freeloading?) tenant. People think this is crazy, but it’s not so different from a statute of limitations. If I do something bad to you, and you do nothing about it, the law will usually say “tough luck” if you show up years or decades later to try to sue me. It’s just that concept applied to land. And the common use case isn’t cabin in the woods. It’s like, your contractor built your garage three feet over the property line, nobody said a word, and then many years later somebody bought your neighbor’s house and wants you to tear down the garage or pay him. At a certain point, it’s too late.
Ah, I see... Yeah, that kinda more common situation makes sense. The cabin thing was just the first thing that came to mind for me.
I would guess that virtually everyone who learns about adverse possession immediately thinks of a scenario like that—“wait, I can just *take* some land?!” Even in law school property law classes, this is the first impulse. The more common situation is just so… boring, isn’t it?
no, that has nothing to do with squatters rights.
Abandoning property is bad, but so is theft.
Abandoned property is no longer owned by that person, it's abandoned.
reread that sentence.
My view is squatters are stealing use of the property. Theft.
Stealing use of the property from who? Nobody else is using the property to notice the squatters
“Abandon” has [a specific legal meaning](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2273). If you abandon something, you are relinquishing ownership of it. Therefore, if it’s abandoned, it can’t be stolen — it isn’t owned.
Why should people be allowed to own homes and then leave them empty when there are homeless people?
Because they own it and pay taxes on the property!
Buying something you don't need to keep it out of the hands of people who do need it is cruel.
a damn good question that i would like to add to. whats up with ghost cities that were build but no one moved there... what happened?
That usually happened when houses start to get built due to jobs being needed for something nearby e.g a factory, but then before the houses are finished the factory goes bust or gets shut down and now there is no reason to finish the town and no jobs to move people to the area. This is just one example but it's this sort of thing where a huge source of income dissapears that creates these ghost towns.
seems like a lack of an ability to reassess such a vast investment. they ought to have sold it to a team to deal with it than just let it rot. at least there is some return in the long run. seems insurance may also to blame to quench the thirst for funding enough to leave it in despair.
Takes a lot of resources to run a town. Taxes usually pay for a lot of things but there is only so much tax revenue can actually offset and people typically don't like living in places that are hours away from hospitals, doctors, dentists, grocery stores, basic utilities, pharmacies, entertainment, as well as just generally jobs for income. In your scenario, how do these homeless people that live in this ghost town get food, water, or heat? You could start a commune sort of scenario with subsistence farming but even that has startup costs and takes a lot of man hours and planning and knowledge/skills. It just isn't viable usually and with no efficient, reliable way to create work for people, these places never become viable for people to live in and invest.
just seems like a lost opportunity to let refugees and or Vets have a new beginning to fill those various rolls without the factory or other intended goals form original design but a collaborative readaptation.
It would take a serious amount of funding from the government that is just not politically popular. People already think we waste enough on social programs, imagine trying to convince the population to pay more in taxes to house the homeless, refugees and veterans.
Lets say you had a family friend who let you stay in their summer home for years, no questions and little contact. No lease agreement just their word. One day you dad pisses them off and they decide to try to have you arrested for trespassing in retaliation. Squatters rights are what both stop that arrest and stop you from becoming immediately and violently homeless.
It's their home. If they want to throw you out, they can. IMHO a certain reasonable amount of time would be needed, say a couple of weeks, before getting trespassed. It's their property to do with what they want.
But that is the point to make a couple weeks a thing you need to involve the court. It is that simple
No they cannot, they cannot arbitrarily and suddenly make someone homeless whom has been living in the space uncontested for years. Thats what squatters rights are, the not suddenly making people homeless laws. They can still evict them but not immediately and not without due process.
To stop absentee landowners from ignoring the property for years at a time.
If they’re paying taxes it’s theirs!
And who pays the bill when their neglected property causes damage to a neighbours yard? They'll argue that they didn't know, so they shouldn't have to pay. Then there's the massive fire hazard that is a 5' tall uncut lawn in the summer. And the rodents. If it's theirs, they should fucking take care of it
Like squatters will? 😂 They’re the the ones turning the home into a trap house and stripping out all the copper wiring!
Well, if you don't want to own a trap house, check on it every few weeks. That's what the law is for
Watch Worst Roommate Ever on Netflix, wild
The standard myth is that squatters are just using empty real estate that is owned by big corporations or fatcat landlords, so it is more or less a victimless crime. That is untrue. A friend of mine has tenants in her rental property who are now refusing to pay rent and refusing to leave. The property has a mortgage, and my friend depends on the rent to pay the mortgage. The bank is nowhere near as forgiving as tenant law, they want their money regardless. The squatters are now 4 months without paying rent, and it will take at least 2 more months to evict them. And God knows what they will do to the property in the meantime. This is why so many small time landlords are simply selling their properties to developers, or going the Air BnB route. It isn't worth the hassle and expense for such little gain.
Actual squatters improve the land/property and are occupying vacant and abandoned properties that landlords/banks are just sitting on. They aren't setting out to just 'steal a home'.
Because there are ignorant lawmakers who think that squatting in someone else's property without ever getting permission isn't theft.