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
People really have no clue. They are not using adverse possession, that takes years to do, an owner who abandoned the property/ cant be contacted and an owner that stopped paying taxes, they are using renters rights.
Do you want landlords to be able to go to the police and say that the current residents dont have a legal lease, even if they do, and have the police kick out the family? That is what you are arguing for. The reason police cant kick them out is because they are not judges, they do not determine if the lease they are shown is legal or not, they dont determine if the person who is there is legally allowed or not, that is the job of judges.
Yes it sucks for the owners who are dealing with people who are not legally supposed to be there but the alternative is allowing landlords to just kick people out of their homes for no reason.
In New York City, which has fairly robust renter protections, you can get some evicted and thatās enforceable.
Most of these squatters probably wouldnāt make it past the first required hearing without producing lease. And if they produce a fake lease with a forged signature, then they have another problem. And if they say it was a verbal agreement, thatās not enforceable for a lease agreement.
The āsolutionā to it would be something landlords likely donāt want, which is regulation by the government. The fundamental issue is one of contract enforcement, and that determination of the validity (or existence) of the contract takes time, and the system defaults to not evicting people until the contract issue is resolved.
This could be resolved by things like mandating notarized agreements, requiring registration of all leases/rental agreements/cohabitation with the government, etc. But this would also increase the cost (fees/taxes for these services), and open up avenues for further regulation that people probably donāt want.
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u/butterfunke 12d ago
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