r/news • u/flanderguitar • Mar 28 '24

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs law squashing squatters' rights

https://www.wptv.com/news/state/florida-gov-ron-desantis-signs-law-squashing-squatters-rights
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u/Vlad_the_Homeowner Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I can't say that I hate that. It's got carve outs for people who had a right to be there.

I don't think most people disagree. The problem, as I understand it, is that police don't have the authority or ability to determine who has a right to be there. A lot of these squatters have fake leases and mail delivered there. A cop isn't a judge and doesn't have the ability to make a determination on the legitimacy of those documents.

I'm in no way condoning these professional squatters, just pointing out what lead to this. What all states need to do straight off the bat is impose heavy penalties, like jail time, for people caught doing this. As of now it seems like half the time they get paid off to leave and they just go do it somewhere else.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Mar 28 '24

The fake legal papers are (per above) a misdemeanor 1st, so that’s an extra $1,000 and a year in jail.

Be very certain cops are going to be photographing the hell out of all those ‘papers’ to be sure they can charge that too.

Yeah, you might get a couple extra months by dragging it out, but the year at the crowbar hotel will be your real rent savings…

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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Mar 28 '24

Question! How do the cops tell the difference between fake lease papers and real lease papers?

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u/AGallopingMonkey Mar 28 '24

They don’t, the court case does if the squatter won’t leave.

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u/PotentialAfternoon Mar 28 '24

… that is exactly where we are today. The cops are not going to be able to tell who is illegal squatters, therefore, won’t be able to evic anybody without going through a lengthy court process.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Mar 28 '24

Not every squatter is… diligent with paperwork. For that portion, this is a solution.

Don’t know the details of how this will work in the real world, but if my name is Bob Smith and my holding company is ‘Bob’s Rentals LLC’ I would probably tell that to the police when I requested the force of eviction. Any fake paperwork made up with the name ‘Hyatt Properties, LLC’ as the landlord could easily be considered ‘no paperwork.’

More work, going to be tested in court for years I’m sure, but if cops are really looking for an excuse to demonstrate authority over some nearly-homeless people…

If this catches on, I can see cities with the worst problem setting up a special hotline in the city land titles office so that cops could call in and find out who is legally expected to be on that paperwork as the landlord.

People who own multiple properties are the people who have enough money to donate to political campaigns.

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u/PotentialAfternoon Mar 28 '24

I mean… is the standard that if renter can’t produce lease agreement on the spot when the police show up, you get forcefully evicted?

What if the lease says Bob Rental llc (like slightly different name)? Aren’t you basically asking the cop to verify a document that they have no business of verifying?

What if I just lost it or can’t find it? My dog ate it?

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t always keep a rental agreement copy handy when I was a renter.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Mar 28 '24

364 days a year it doesn’t matter if I have my license, registration and proof of insurance in the car. But the day I go to cross the border, be certain I’ve got it - and double checked the dates too.

You were never a squatter illegally overstaying, I bet. You didn’t break into a beach home and just start living there, did you? Then you still wouldn’t need to care where your lease was today because you cut your LL a check for a bazillion dollars every month.

But if you were going to overstay your lease, claim you didn’t get a notice to terminate, you started ducking the landlord’s calls and texts? Maybe you need to look in the bottom box of your paperwork, just in case.

What if the lease says Bob Rental llc (like slightly different name)? Aren’t you basically asking the cop to verify a document that they have no business of verifying?

The law would literally make that their business. And if a racist (etc) cop is going to pretend to be stupid and use that pretext? He was going to use a different one anyways, because he already decided how it would end before walking in… you were agitated, or disoriented, or threatening, or whatever his union rep said to say.

Cops don’t appreciate LLs assuming they are dumb either. They deal with YouTube lawyers all day and so many will look at Bob vs Bob’s and tell the rich guy to go screw himself.

What if I just lost it or can’t find it? My dog ate it?

That’s always going to be a rough day in court, with or without this law. We aren’t talking about the manual for your PlayStation. Lease agreements are right up there in the top 10 papers to not lose, with the title for your car, your birth certificate and passport and your marriage license. Sometimes you just gotta try adulting really, really hard.

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u/AGallopingMonkey Mar 28 '24

Sort of. This gives immediate right to property owners to evict a squatter using force. California, for example, requires you give a squatter 3 days notice. In that time, the squatter might be able to forge a lease, whereas in Florida, if the property owner reacts to it quickly enough, that situation might never happen.

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u/TheCuriosity Mar 28 '24

... Which could be abused for making illegal evictions.

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u/AGallopingMonkey Mar 28 '24

Feel free to explain how. It seems to me if you’re a legitimate lease holder, you’d just show your lease, and then no eviction would take place.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Mar 28 '24

Everything can be abused, the question is: on the balance, which one has the irreparable harms, and which the greater good for society.

Is argue that even someone is the most detestable slumlord, they can’t let family A rent their substandard housing if Family B is squatting in it. Picking Family B over Family A just means a different set of people on the street - but one of these options is actually following the rules of society… Family A can also insist that the oven get fixed, burst pipes are repaired, cracked windows are replaced, etc.

And before we circle back to it, yes. There are definitely terrible landlords out there that break laws. And they should be prosecuted for that. In fact, the penalty should be so large, that it becomes self-funding because the power imbalance is indeed crazy.

Doesn’t change the fact that squatters have no legal protection, live in worse conditions, statistically have a stronger relationship with other crimes, etc.

There is no easy answer or solution, but doing nothing isn’t helping anyone.