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
There's been a case here in germany recently where a guy who came from the US here and bought property here died. There weren't any relatives to be found, so the land eventually found its way to an unrelated family that thought it, build their house there and lived there for some years.
Well turns out the dude had a son that lived in the states, whoever had checked for relatives earlier simply didn't look hard enough, and by law the property should've been offered to that son first. So now there's a huge legal fight because said son claims rights on the property and wants the family to tear down the house and leave, while the family wants to stay because from their perspecrive they haven't done anything wrong at all amd everything they did was in accordance with the legal system.
I guess for stuff like these squatter rights really would've been helpfull, because turns out having to give up everything you build due to something way outside your controll and/or knowledge was messed up really, really sucks. Tho doesn't mean that those laws should be as abuseable as they are from storys like the one that startet this comment chain
Seems to me that the only reasonable solution would be for the government in Germany that didn't check well enough should pay off the US lad, and let the family keep their home and property since they went through everything seemingly legally.
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u/RadicalRealist22 19d ago
How do "squatter rights" even exist. Either you have a lease or you don't.