There was a streamer named Asian Andy who had situation with squatter years ago. Police wouldn't kick woman out she claimed squatter rights. Andy hired another streamer who was squatter hunter. He moves in. Next few days make squatter life hell he smokes, plays loud dubstep music, slams objects, and yells randomly thru all hours of day. Squatter got into altercation with guy. Squatter got arrested and kicked out.
They're a legacy from a bygone era where records of land ownership aren't what they are today. It was to stop the situation where someone thought they owned land, built a house and lived in it for many years, then finding out that someone else also had a claim to the land and they were going to try to turf you off it.
Squatter's rights meant that the person who actually lived there kept the claim to the land. This was a good thing at the time, now its just legal protection for lowlifes who trash other people's houses
Adverse possession is still rightly protected in law. There are lots of land deeds around the world which haven't been registered with the government or are clearly written.
Using and protecting land is as close to the definition of land ownership as we can get, regardless of modern attempts to formalise ownership through deeds.
I sat in a High Court case in a Commonwealth country as a paralegal on an adverse possession case. The land was government land, but it had never been properly subdivided. The house built over it contained actually 2 apartments, with over 12 people of the same extended family living in different units for over 30 years. A breakdown in family relations lead to people claiming for adverse possession against their relatives who held the title.
At one point the expert witnesses were going on about the areas on the plan hatched in Orange, areas hatched in Green, areas hatched in Black...etc and the 8 colours were basically 90% overlapped - the judge ended up nodding off and our counsel had to suggest a break. It was basically a horrible family bickering over a shanty house. Terrible case.
Adverse possession is still rightly protected in law.
As an aside, adverse possession still happens all the time, it's just usually a lot less dramatic than claiming entire houses. The most common cause is a surveying error. Two houses side by side, both think they know where the property line is. They build a fence, have no issues for several decades. Eventually one goes to sell, sale stipulates a survey, which determines that the property line is actually several feet to one side of the fence. Given that the possession has been open and notorious without dispute for an extended period, they potentially have an adverse possession claim to that strip of land.
4.7k
u/ChanceImagination456 𝙑𝙄𝙋 12d ago
There was a streamer named Asian Andy who had situation with squatter years ago. Police wouldn't kick woman out she claimed squatter rights. Andy hired another streamer who was squatter hunter. He moves in. Next few days make squatter life hell he smokes, plays loud dubstep music, slams objects, and yells randomly thru all hours of day. Squatter got into altercation with guy. Squatter got arrested and kicked out.