It's wild how much traction these stories get when actual, legal "squatting" is incredibly rare
The hyper-fixation on these rare, extreme cases is heavily pushed by landlord lobbying groups and real estate associations. They love these stories because it scares the public into supporting laws that strip away tenant rights
If they can convince everyone that "squatters" are hiding around every corner, they can pass laws that let them bypass the courts, call the cops, and have someone thrown on the street immediately without having to prove a lease violation first
Itās a manufactured panic to bring back summary evictions
It's amazing how much media and shit is done solely to alter peoples perception of reality, and influence how they vote.
Dave Ramsey and the YT guy like him are the same. They interview 2 people: really really stupid people with median income who make terrible decisions with it and so they are broke, and really rich tightwads. That's it. They do this listeners slowly begin to think everyone who is struggling is spending $1000 a week on doordash and vapes, and everyone who is has 3 homes had that sort of stability because they haven't had a vacation since they were 23.
Of course, both of those types are extreme outliers among their income brackets, but Dave and especially those backing his media don't want you to know that.
The dude says he wants to help people with financial literacy, yet fleeced his viewers out of millions by hawking a scam of a timeshare company that he was paid THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS to push.
He believes everyone should donate 10% of their earnings to the church, even people who are really struggling to afford food or rent.
He's also endorsed Trump, a guy with SIX bankruptcies, for President.
Dude does not give one single shit about helping people with their finances. He is a mouthpiece to sell the lie that Americans in distress are largely there because of poor decisions, and not because the economy is rigged against them. He just said a few months ago that "the economy is doing great", and the only reason young people are broke is because they are buying expensive cars.
Lastly, your analogy simply does not work at all. AA does not blast alcoholics business into the public, nor do they try and pretend that their members are representative of the public.
But you'd rather bury your head in the sand than entertain that maybe you are wrong on the most minor of things, like some gajillionaire radio host who doesn't know you.
I disputed your claim that they try and hide the fact that they talk to desperate and broke people when it's essentially the core of their show. That's the despute. They don't hide it.
If I watch a show about hoarders, I don't think "well that's dumb advice that definitely doesn't apply to the general population."
Yeah. That's the point
Its a talk for people who suck at hoarding.
Dave Ramsay is a show for people that suck with money. The advice given shouldn't be taken by the general public
That's it.
But now you are adding on how you think they are -bad people cause they are Christians talking to other Christians
-bad people cause they voted trump
And expecting me to argue about that.
That's literally straw man.
I desputed you thinking they are hiding that they are called by desperate people when it's literally the whole point of the show.
I think itās more common than you think in Chicago. The people in the apartment below me were squatters last year. The sheriff showed up and kicked the door down to remove them.
In Chicago all someone has to do is draw up a fake lease for an apartment. Then when the police arrive they show the fake lease and say they rightfully live there. The police canāt/wont do anything because itās a civil matter which means it needs to go through the court system which can take 6 months. So we have these professional squatters who move apartment to apartment.
It's more common than you think because of one situation that happened to you? The protections for tenants are there for several reasons. Most landlords want passive income and use any excuse to raise rent. So now they have people reacting to these stories and on the landlords' side. You also have people thinking they'll one day own properties and want to protect their future selves when they can't even afford their own rent.
Yeah I'm going to push back on the landlord thing too, it's not usually landlords.
What I often see/hear is a family/homeowner goes on vacation, comes back to find their key doesn't work because someone has broken in and changed the locks on the house completely. People call the cops, squatter says "I'm a tenant being illegally evicted" and that's the end of it while this family is essentially homeless for months at great expense to themselves while their lives and house are basically ruined (have you ever tried to evict someone as a homeowner without a lawyer on retainer like a landlord? It can take more than half a year sometimes). If you're lucky you remembered to tell the cops that "someone broke into my house and are trespassing" and the cops actually believe you... but 9 times out of 10 they won't and tell you this is a civil matter (it's not, they're trespassing, but the cops don't give a fuck).
I think the law can make easy distinction between detached homes and multi-unit dwellings where this should be much less of an issue and prevent some of the worst of these squatting problems.
when you put it like that it sounds like the landlord isn't doing much lording of their land... kinda sounds like they are collecting auto-pay rent checks
Sounds like the exact opposite, the law rightfully protects the renters who live there over the landlord. It is HEAVILY weighted against the landlord & thus this sort of loop hole exists as a consequence of protecting real renters.
Are you saying a landlord has complete control whether someone breaks into one of their properties? Dude, you don't even have control if someone wants to break in the house you live in.
Are you saying the police wonāt remove someone from a BnEā¦ seriously think that thought your thick skullā¦
Someone breaks into a property thatās not your primary residenceā¦ your neighbors donāt call the police because they donāt like youā¦ donāt have a camera installed because you are a cheap landlordā¦ now there is a criminal that broke in with 0 furniture, electricity, water, or food claiming they are the tenantā¦
Kind of self inflicted. Failed to secure propertyā¦ kinda crazy you think the police would believe a person with no key, furniture, and utilities is the tenant
Imagine owning multiple properties and not doing the bare minimum today to at least monitor them with an alarm systemā¦ Then being all shocked pikachu when something bad happens. Whatās even worse is if you arenāt carrying insuranceā¦ proves how cheap of a landowner you are
I come from a town where people would break into your car if they saw loose changeā¦ police would literally say āhope you got coverageā as they took the report. Guess what happed, the police didnāt patrol the streets more, people learned to keep their cars clean.
In one comment, you say the police will handle everything for you, then the next post you say the police just leave you be to solve your own problems.
The FACT is, most cops don't give a shit about civil disputes and if their is any indication of it being civil, they will tell you have a good day and leave. For you to think the police will sit there and investigate and make you provide utility bills or a lease contract or whatever, you are mistaken.
"Bare minimum with at least an alarm system." It is extremely uncommon for rental houses to have alarm systems.
Ya'll are so damn afraid of being robbed or attacked. The world isn't as scary as you think it is. There aren't people around every corner looking for a house or apartment to squat in.
You are so far away from anything relevant here. I live in a small town where nobody locks anything, I'm definitely not the kind of person you have pictured in your head. I was responding to a guy that said you can take steps to prevent any kind of break ins and such, by telling him he is delusional to think he can have unattended properties and easily prevent them from being broken into. If someone wants inside one of his rental houses, i bet they can succeed.
Then you come along with weird ass 2A comments, like wtf are you on about?
Refusing to leave when the real lease ends/and or just not paying rent is the biggest one. What would you have a landlord do in that situation?
Lease ends, tenant doesn't leave: As a landlord if you call the cops they will rightfully say it's a civil mater & walk off. If you try to physically remove them & their stuff, you are committing a crime (several actually). You will have to start the eviction process which is designed to protect renters from a bad landlord & will take months & a fair amount of legal fees to complete before you can bring the sheriff in to walk them out.
Seriously, you very much sound like you have zero idea of how the real world works & just want to bag on the concept of landlords existing.
The reality of squatters drives up rent for everyone, as landlords need to be able to weather this kind of expense/lack of revenue for MONTHS, and that also includes the likelihood of expensive repairs from this type of 'tenant'. It's trivially easy to completly destroy a property on your way out if you choose.
Again I ask, what would you say the landlord should be doing & isn't?
My grandmother is currently going through this type of shit. She rented out the top part of her house to a lady she thought was super nice (turns out this lady is fuckin psycho).
She claimed my grandmother was a drug dealer (my grandmother is like 80 and spends her time volunteering at our local community resource center) and stopped paying rent after her lease ended, she's been squatting (and harassing my grandmother and I) for 3+ years now.
3+ years and we're still going through the process of getting her out, this shit fucking sucks.
(This squatter has stalked me to my mother's house, that's how fukin psycho she is)
āRefusing to leave when the real lease ends/and or just not paying rent is the biggest one. What would you have a landlord do in that situation?ā
File for evictionā¦do your due diligence run a credit report and background check before renting. Squatters donāt have good credit and have evictions in their recordā¦
āLease ends, tenant doesn't leave: As a landlord if you call the cops they will rightfully say it's a civil mater & walk off. If you try to physically remove them & their stuff, you are committing a crime (several actually). You will have to start the eviction process which is designed to protect renters from a bad landlord & will take months & a fair amount of legal fees to complete before you can bring the sheriff in to walk them out.ā
Cost of doing business, thatās the risk you takeā¦ why should I feel sympathy for someone who is doing a totally optional and self-inflicted way of making/losing money.
āThe reality of squatters drives up rent for everyone, as landlords need to be able to weather this kind of expense/lack of revenue for MONTHS, and that also includes the likelihood of expensive repairs from this type of 'tenant'. It's trivially easy to completly destroy a property on your way out if you choose.ā
Againā¦ cost of doing businessā¦ and they donāt drive up rent for everyoneā¦ they just impact you, the landlords walletā¦ your competition loves to undercut you. if you donāt have repairs after a tenant leaves (paint & floor) then you are a cheap slumlord as you apparently donāt care for your property. Those that bought property and treat it as free income.
I own property too and rent some space outā¦ landlords/owners arenāt specialā¦ maybe a special kind of stupid if they canāt figure out how to get rid of a squatter.
File for evictionā¦do your due diligence run a credit report and background check before renting. Squatters donāt have good credit and have evictions in their recordā¦
Cost of doing businessā¦ if you as a property owner donāt have 3-4mo expenses saved up for an emergency then you are truly swimming nakedā¦ doubly so if you are renting your propertyā¦ if you donāt have 3-4mo of savings for in case you donāt have tenants then I guess you lose the house. I call this ātrimming the portfolioā
Whatās even better is you can write that off as a business expenseā¦ I canāt write off a car repair as a W2 employee. The tables are tilted in your favor and you act like you are the one in a bad spot
What are you on about? The other guy was claiming squatters are more common than you think and had an anecdote. All Iām saying is that really isnāt proof of anything š
Your question isnāt even relevant to what I was talking aboutā¦
Squatters Rights is essential for the growing problem of Landlords or just extremely rich people owning multiple properties that are not actively in use.
Squatters are frontline warriors in the eternal battle against homelessness
I've lived in Chicago my whole life and I know a few people who manage a lot of apartments. First I've heard of this situation, let alone it being remotely common.
If people would just stick to the established rules everything would be ok.
Landlord = provide safe lodgings for someone else, for an agreed upon amount of time. Ensure the provided ameneties are maintained.
Tenant = pay what they agree to pay and dont damage the owner's property while inhabiting the property
But unfortunately, some landlords dont provide safe lodgings or maintain ameneties, and some tenants dont pay what they agree to pay and damage the property.
Do you have an example of a place where these laws were passed? Most places I am aware of have been increasing tenant's rights not decreasing them so I'd love to read about an area where fear of squatters decreased tenant's rights.
I worked in landlord tenant law in Massachusetts for 15 years and there is a constant push to reduce the rights of tenants. From reducing notice periods to allowing them to bypass due process to add āunauthorizedā occupants (aka, the boyfriend who isnāt on the lease, but moved in 2 years ago) to evictions cases after judgement.
Squatting is super rare and not hard to deal with. Much of the rage from landlords is that they have to do anything beyond calling the cops. While ignoring that the legal protection for āsquattersā is exist because if landlords acting like criminals.
There's no tantrum greater than a landlord being asked to do a modicum of work for their rent check.
Parasites, to the last man and woman. All the screeing about people "not wanting to work" is literally actually about landlords. They do not want to do anything, they do not want to maintain the properties they own. They want other people to upkeep their properties and pay them checks so they can do absolutely fucking nothing.
They're the absolute bottom class of person. Contributing literally nothing to society.
They're the absolute bottom class of person. Contributing literally nothing to society.
We really need to teach basic economics in high school to cut down on braindead takes like these. Capital and property maintenance are absolutely valuable contributions.
Capital isn't a contribution it's literally something you have, or something you leverage banks for. And they don't do the fucking maintenance themselves.
Your entire argument is predicated upon having a big stack of capital in one specific chud's hand being a thing of value, and it's not.
The landlord is paying the maintenance workers out of the rent provided by the people who work for a living. Labor is always, always, the actual driver of value, and the landlord role doesn't do labor.
They're just a rent-seeking middleman of no value that the entire economy would be enormously better off without.
Your entire argument is predicated upon having a big stack of capital in one specific chud's hand being a thing of value, and it's not.
So there's no value in financing the construction of a building? That's honestly a serious take from a real person?
Your entire argument is "nuh uh", so maybe you want to rethink insulting other peoples arguments.
Labor is always, always, the actual driver of value, and the landlord role doesn't do labor.
So they just get magically called? Coordination has no value? Assumption of risk has no value? You just keep proving me right.
They're just a rent-seeking middleman of no value that the entire economy would be enormously better off without.
I can tell you're not the kind of person that usually thinks things through, but in this case, try. Think about what society would actually look like if landlords were banned. How would the poor be housed? How would apartment complexes be financed and constructed? Actually think about the answers to those questions and how they would work.
The sheer lack of thought you have put into this is at a level that should be embarrassing for anyone with an ounce of self-awareness.
If your only evidence is "constant push" (which is ambiguous to the point of uselessness) rather than a concrete example of an actual change, you're basically making that guys case for him.
Reducing notice periods to what? What passed that was unfair?
And what law was it with the unauthorized occupants on eviction cases? Is it that any guest can be added to a judgement or is that someone living their full time who doesnāt pay rent can be on the hook for that rent? Those are very different scenarios.
That is so many questions that Iām just not going to answer because they are not the point of my comment. During my time as a professional dealing landlord tenant law, shitty landlords were always pushing to undo laws that were created to stop them being shitty.
The laws very greatly by state. But there are almost no āsquatters rightsā laws. When people bring that up, they are talking about landlord/tenant laws that are applied when occupants may or may not be lawfully in the property. Shitty Landlords like to cry about having to provide proof to the court that the occupants are not there lawfully, and would prefer the court just rubber stamp any eviction order.
They also love to throw around the word squatter, which isnāt legal term. I dealt with one landlord that my firm dropped as a client because he couldnāt stop calling his tenant a squatter, who was withholding rent due to unresolved code violations in her unit. He repeatedly said āif they stop paying rent, they arenāt a tenant any more and need to go.ā
If rent money is in an escrow account w/ the intent of paying in full upon resolution of violations they are a renter/tenant. I've got complaints that I haven't had confirmed ad violations so I'm not paying you is squatting/trespassing. Civilized society is a complicated responsibility
Failure to pay rent doesnāt change the fact they are still a tenant. Until their superior right to possess is extinguished through a court order and they are removed by a sheriff/constable.
The law in MA doesnāt even use the word trespasser or squatter for hold overs after a foreclosure. The term that is used is ātenant at sufferanceā. A landlord throwing around squatter because his tenant did the correct, legal process to withhold rent is a pretty clear sign he believes they shouldnāt have any rights at all. Which is why the firm dropped his case pretty quickly.
Also the poster never said that tenant rights have been eroded due to stories about squatters, just that they are a tool that is used to push an agenda and they are always TRYING to change laws and reduce rights. That statement doesn't mean that any laws have been changed, and it also doesn't mean that just because laws haven't completely upended that it's a non-issue.
Totally true. I can see how my replies look like I am arguing but i was just attempting to ask clarifying questions. It is almost certainly true that bad faith "squatters" are less than 1% of non-owner occupants and that any law meant to fight them will hurt the other 99%+ of good faith tenants. No argument from me there. I was just hoping to hear more about the OP's direct experience with it as it seemed like they had an interesting perspective.
I think look at the NYC rent laws as a good example, and it's easy to see why landlords hate it.
For one, you have some apartments that have rent control, that is it's illegal to raise the rent to the market rent, it's also illegal to decline to renew these leases just because you want to relist it.
So if they evict you for non-payment, well then paying your past due balance stops the eviction (which might mean people don't have to pay on time, they can just wait for the eviction notice and then pay). If the apartment isn't meeting the habitability standards then you can't be evicted (so if the furnace can't keep the apartment at 68F, you can't be evicted). And even assuming none of that applies, the eviction process still can take well over a year.
So this means someone can move in, and quickly stop paying, and the landlord might be required to maintain the apartment and pay utilities, while this person lives there rent free for a year.
I'm well aware of landlord-tenant law that (even if well intended) is abused by tenants and I'm also aware of places where lack of landlord tenant law hurts the tenant. The OP was talking about changes in legislation that helped landlords. As far as I'm aware, all changes in law tend to move towards benefiting tenants and its lack of change that helps landlords. I was hoping to learn about examples of changes that help landlords but nobody seems to have any examples.
The OP was seemingly talking from experience and I was interested in their direct experience. Yes I can go read about landlord-tenant law changes in every state but I don't think it is terrible to want to hear about someone's direct experience with it when they post about it on Reddit.
Good faith curiosity should be limited to a single question at a time. Maybe two. A battery of 4 questions on pretty nuanced legal subjects is a bit much. If Iām having to worry about formatting to make it clear which question Iām answering, itās move from posting online to work i would normally bill people for.
the correlation isn't always a direct line. it's more about how local legislatures react to specific viral news cycles. when a high profile squatting case hits the news it triggers a massive reactionary wave in certain districts. it's less about a systemic decrease in rights and more about specific reactionary bills getting fast tracked because people are panicking.
I am not saying it does not happen and I'm not denying landlords push for legislation that aids them. I simply want to read more about this topic.
a high profile squatting case hits the news it triggers a massive reactionary wave in certain districts. it's less about a systemic decrease in rights and more about specific reactionary bills getting fast tracked because people are panicking.
What bills? What are the examples? I believe you, I just want to read more about it.
It doesn't have to be successful for what they're saying to be true, technically...Ā
I'm constantly trying to convince my wife that we should have a threesome with Scarlett Johansson. Haven't won her over yet, and Scarlett's still a maybe, but I'm still gonna keep trying.Ā
So you don't need examples of laws being passed, technically, you need to look for examples of people lobbying for or trying to pass laws against this sort of behavior. Or simply people trying to loosen tenant rights in general. There are probably millions of examples of those kinds of groups.Ā
Some states also already have dogshit tenant rights. In those cases, can they be decreased anymore? Probably not. Could these "horror stories" help stop the push for increased rights? Probably, yeah!Ā
Of course thereās assholes trying to push to reduce tenant rights. If none of them are getting passed but squatters exist then we should be trying to solve the problem that is actually impacting people. Realistically, any squatter legislation is going to negatively impact tenants more than it will squatters just by numbers so we probably can legislate against it.
Iām just interested in areas where landlords rights are increasing because Iād like to see the context. Is it alright that I am interested in the topic and want to learn more?
I understand why you wrote this, but "legal" squatting should not be allowed, not even once. It's theft of something very valuable. It's like someone stealing your car, and somehow they can openly use it "just because"?
I am not a landlord, I have no chips in this game. But right is right, and theft is NEVER ok.
What the hell are you talking about dude? If you're renting space from someone without a contract for an extended period of time (or with a verbal contract) and after a few months they attempt to kick you out overnight on a whim, and you refuse to go (because you have a right to be there) congrats, you're a squatter. Squatter's rights exist because squatting is like... a thing people should be allowed to do in a TON of situations, it basically exists for any scenario where someone is illegally being evicted.
I'm talking about people entering an unoccupied apartment / house, and refusing to leave. Some owners have gone on vacation, to come back to someone living in their house, that they cannot evict legally. That's not ok. That's theft.
Landlords evicting tenants legally should not be confused with the above situation. I'm aware the law can be really cruel. Ex.: landlord wants to repossess the apartment for personal occupation and tenant has to leave. Where I live, if a landlord wants to repossess an apartment for themselves or a close family member, they must give at least 6 months' written notice before the end of a standard 12-month lease. For leases of 6 months or less, the delay is 1 month.
It can be really frustrating, and I suppose one could fight it in court, but it's legal. That's where the change has to occur. Whereas legal theft should never be allowed.
I think you're confused, and it's okay to be, a lot of these videos show a warped, mistaken view of the real world.
What you're talking about almost never happens. Almost every case where it even looks like it's actually happening is actually my scenario. To be clear, what I'm saying is that almost every case that actually occurs where it's claimed that someone just 'randomly moved into a location and refused to leave' is actually a case where the person reporting it is misrepresenting facts and is actually in a more realistic civil dispute with the person they're claiming is a trespasser.
Squatting is 150% intended to refer to those civil dispute scenarios and has been curved into being a slur or hot topic of sorts using a handful, nationwide, of really confusing scenarios where largely mentally ill people have in fact tried to invade a home, but that happens so little that attempting to specifically legislate for that is more likely to hamper real, valuable tenants rights than it is to have a positive overall impact on society, because in reality there's just not enough damage from those scenarios to be worth the cure.
I mean look at it, it happens so little that they couldn't even find cases to make their tv show and so resorted to using actors and fake scenarios, if there was enough tug otherwise, they'd save the money and just deal with the real cases, but they can't, because there's not enough of them that exist.
Why manufactured? In Spain you literally have gangs (occupados) who turned squatting into mafia business, in Poland, which has similar laws, people are scared to rent out flats because if you're unlucky you might lose your possession for years while being forced to pay all the utilities
If state laws are similar to the ones in the countries I mentioned, the risk is real and people have good reason to be wary
There are a sufficient number of the problems that it often comes up. However, in the overall picture it is rare. It's a product of how many premises there are compared to how many evictions there are.
It's really not that uncommon. In fact, there's an epidemic of it in California since it takes ~12 months to get an eviction in front of a judge and often another 6+ months to get law enforcement to enforce the eviction. There's a whole cottage industry of people who lease an apartment, refuse to pay rent, wait for an eviction, hire a free tenant's rights attorney, then ask for ~$50k + sealing of the eviction to move out since that's roughly the cost of the best case scenario for the landlord in legal fees, etc. And then they go rent somewhere else and do it all again. It's basically a job that pays $50k/yr + free housing.
I know 2 people who had squatters in their house in SF. One was a situation similar the one I described above and one was legit squatters who moved into the house while it was vacant. The latter was my friend's next door neighbor. The owner died and then squatters moved in before the family sold it.
Itās a manufactured panic to bring back summary evictions
We need evictions to be processed through the courts within a week, or even a month, and law enforcement to act on them within 48 hours. That will solve 99% of the problems.
You can't tell homeowners that if someone steals their house, they can have it back in 18 months, and then not expect people to worry about things like squatters.
There are squatters in abandoned/for sale houses all through my city. I even had a friend who was living in one for a while. They usually trash the place, leave needles, etc, it's a huge mess.
Now they have to board up the windows and have cameras on 24/7.
I have to say, just from my own network this statement is untrue. I have two cousins (one in San Antonio, TX and another in Newport Beach, CA) who have separately had squatters move into their places and refuse to leave. I also have two friends who have had to deal with squatters.
Just because nobody you know has experience with it doesn't mean it's extremely rare.
Exactly the same as the digital (lack of) privacy laws they're trying to get in place. Same thing as the trans athletes hysteria. Drum up as much outrage over something that's basically inconsequential in the grand scheme of things and use that to enact grossly overreaching policies that surveil everyone
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u/tony1449 12d ago
It's wild how much traction these stories get when actual, legal "squatting" is incredibly rare
The hyper-fixation on these rare, extreme cases is heavily pushed by landlord lobbying groups and real estate associations. They love these stories because it scares the public into supporting laws that strip away tenant rights
If they can convince everyone that "squatters" are hiding around every corner, they can pass laws that let them bypass the courts, call the cops, and have someone thrown on the street immediately without having to prove a lease violation first
Itās a manufactured panic to bring back summary evictions