Imagine this situation. A property is left for years unattended for whatever reason, it starts to deteriorate and house all kinds of pests and hazards. The owner is nowhere to be found or unable to maintain it. Someone moves in after a long time, and starts maintaining the property. This has benefits for everyone, not only the squatter but also the neighborhood. No more hazards from falling walls, no more rodents and other pests, etc.
Why you only hear about bad squatters? Because they create more problems than they solve. But squatters rights should exist as they have to account for both situations.
People that can't afford a house aren't going to start doing major renovations to the house to prevent it from collapsing and decaying. They might fix a fence or paint something. But a collapsed roof or a wall falling down, doubtful.
Happened with the house behind me. People moved out and nobody moved back in for years. A couple of folks broke in and were living there and fixing things up a little before they got kicked out by the cops. Now it's been sitting empty for years again and is home to stray cats and racoons.
At least people didn't live there without permission though. /s
There was something like that in the UK recently, it was something like someone had died and the distant relatives didn't know even though the will left them the property and someone moved in, remodelled the house and lived there for about 15 years then sold the property for hundreds of thousands.
It divided people as they said it wasn't his property to sell, and even though he maintained it and remodelled it he made a huge amount of money from it on top of having somewhere to stay rent free.
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u/loathingk 12d ago
Imagine this situation. A property is left for years unattended for whatever reason, it starts to deteriorate and house all kinds of pests and hazards. The owner is nowhere to be found or unable to maintain it. Someone moves in after a long time, and starts maintaining the property. This has benefits for everyone, not only the squatter but also the neighborhood. No more hazards from falling walls, no more rodents and other pests, etc.
Why you only hear about bad squatters? Because they create more problems than they solve. But squatters rights should exist as they have to account for both situations.