Imagine this for a moment… You inherit a family member’s house after they pass, and instead of moving in, you decide to sell it. Of course, that takes some time, as you must first get all of the legal requirements dealt with – the will must be probated, the paperwork must be properly executed and in good order, then you need to find a realtor you like, maybe repair a thing or two before placing the house on the market, and so on. After several weeks (or possibly months) of working to get all of this accomplished, you go by the house to start removing unwanted furniture, clothing, etc., but when you walk up to the front door and try to put the key into the lock, your key doesn’t work. You say to yourself, I must have tried the wrong key. Let me try another. But it wasn’t the wrong key. No. Instead, you realize that someone changed the lock on the door! You cannot get into your house! So you knock on the door, and to your shock, the door opens and you are standing face to face with a complete stranger. You demand they leave, of course, but astonishingly, they refuse. They say it’s their house and has been for weeks now, even though they never asked your permission, or signed a lease, or paid a penny to live there.
The nightmare continues, when you call the police to report a trespassing, only to have the police tell you that they are powerless to do anything, since the “trespassers” have been there for more than 30 days. Thanks to New York State law, those occupants of your house are not trespassers, nor are they breaking the law. Nope. Just the opposite. They are now your tenants, and they possess all of the amazing “rights” that the lawmakers in Albany have bestowed upon tenants, to the severe detriment of landlords. So now you are a landlord, even though you never met the people who are living in your property, you never got to run a credit check on them to see if they can afford to pay the rent, you never got to do a criminal background check to see if they have an undesirable history which could open you up to liability, etc.
As a landlord, in order to get these squatters out of your house, you must now hire an attorney and go through the very lengthy and quite costly expense to sue them. Evictions take months upon months, not days or weeks. As a landlord, you are obligated to maintain the property until the eviction is complete. So you must continue to pay the property taxes, the mortgage, the insurance, upkeep on the grounds, heat working, water flowing, etc. In other words, you must pay for these total strangers to live for free. Indefinitely!
This nightmare situation is known as squatting, and not only is it real, it’s becoming extremely common place. I was recently on NTD News to discuss this criminal phenomenon. You can watch that interview here.
If you want to read up on some real-life instances, below are some recent news articles of various squatting situations where the homeowners lost tens of thousands of dollars and/or their property rights (as any logical human would assume those rights to be). Click to read:
- Queens woman arrested for trying to keep squatters out of her home by changing the locks
- Squatter refuses to leave $2 million home
- Squatters sue property owners for $930k house
- Gun toting, drug dealing illegal aliens squatting in NYC home
On a personal note, I have a family member who was the victim of squatters just last month in NYC. He has a property that was slotted for demolition, and whilst the paperwork and arrangements for the demolition were being worked on and finalized, the property was sitting vacant. In preparation for the imminent demolition, the power to the house was turned off, obviously, which meant the alarm was disconnected too. When his business partner went by the house on one of his bi-monthly property checks, he found squatters had moved into the house, gotten the power restored, and were living there openly and unabashedly, as if the house was their own! They refused to leave, so he immediately called the police, and with his i-phone camera rolling, he video taped the entire episode. Thankfully, since the squatters had only been there the 2 weeks since his last inspection, the police were able to remove them from the house immediately. No lawyers needed. No severley backlogged, tenant-friendly courts to deal with. They got lucky. (How absurd we even have to think this way? “Lucky” someone didn’t steal your house… Unreal).
Think it’s just happening in New York state? Think again. Check out this story about a squatter in Seattle, Washington, named Sang Kim, who has been living rent-free in a $2mm home, and the court granted the squatter a restraining order against the landlord! Oh, and this report says the squatter makes $400,000/year. Check it out here, and a Twitter story here:
Notice the sign in this screenshot, “Landlord Lives Matter!” If you watch the video here, you’ll see neighbors were preparing for a rally outside the occupied home in support of the landlord. It’s a disgrace we’ve gotten to this point in our country.
Breaking it down:
What’s the underlying problem here, folks?
Well, for sure it’s the criminals who are breaking into other people’s homes and living there without permission, without compensation to the owners, and so on. But, the problem is equally (if not more so) due to the criminal politicians who are making the laws that allow this to happen! In Florida, where the state legislature is a supermajority Republican in both houses, and the Governor is Republican, as is the Attorney General, it is a crime to squat, and the procedures for removing squatters are simple and swift. However, here in New York state where the legislature is a supermajority Democrat in both houses, and the Governor is Democrat, as is the Attorney General, squatting is not only legal, the squatters get to live in your property for free, indefinitely, whilst you bust your rump to pay the bills on the place.
Elections have consequences. What do I mean? Well, there is a bill being proposed here in New York that would make squatting a crime, and make it more difficult for squatters to gain so many rights against the property owners. However, that bill is being introduced by Republicans, and the Democrats won’t touch it, which means it will never pass. Unless enough New Yorkers pressure their Democrat legislators to support that bill. Here is the information on the bill, and here is the link to look up who your legislators are. What will you do with this information?
Author
Leave a Reply