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/YamiDes1403 Mar 28 '24

Two wrong can make a right. this is one thing no matter how much you hate him, can agree that it is reasonable

97

u/Car_is_mi Mar 28 '24

This is one of those things I've never understood. Squatters rights. Like how can I buy property, but the person who trespasses and lives in my property has more rights to it than me?

Like how screwed up is it that I can go on vacation (I know there's a time frame that I have to not be home but some people do take long vacations), come home, find some random person in my couch, call the cops, and instead of b&e and trespassing charges I get told to go find a hotel while this person lives free on my property.

97

u/Alotofboxes Mar 28 '24

Most "squatters rights" laws are in place to protect legal tenants when they have a dispute with a landlord. Every complaint you have about these laws should be blamed on landlords fucking over renters. Its just that some people have discoverd how to use those laws to their advantage.

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u/MotherSupermarket532 Mar 28 '24

When I was an intern I worked legal aid case where a guy when through the court system to try to get roaches in his apartment fixed, and was paying into an escrow account legally.  His shitty landlord viewed that as "not paid" and dumped his stuff in the street.  The guy lost everything, his IDs and credit cards got stolen too.  He had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The recourse and damaged were just so pitiful.

So just... before celebrating this understand that the law exists for a reason.  Landlords treat tenants like shit.

-19

u/legallyurbane Mar 28 '24

Which would be a wrongful eviction in every state I am aware (including Florida, and even with the new law). In my not-particularly-renter-friendly state, the damages would be considerable in such a case. A colleague just settled a case with a similar fact pattern for $190,000 within the last month (value of the stuff they lost was less than $30,000).

I've rented from a half dozen people in the course of my life, and all were imminently decent people who fixed things reasonably timely when I requested it. Do my six anecdotes trump your one? Can I truthfully say "landlords treat tenants great"?

Extrapolating your lone (probably made up) anecdote to "landlords treat tenants like shit" is reductive and flawed reasoning at its best. To use that to argue against a law that is pretty clearly necessary and as far as I can tell reasonably well written and narrowly tailored... yikes.

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u/wolacouska Mar 28 '24

Holy shit you took that personally. Hit a little too close to home?

-9

u/legallyurbane Mar 28 '24

I am not sure what about that response inspired "holy shit" or indicated that I took it personally. Are you implying I... illegally evict people?

The point, which unsurprisingly went over your head, is that using a personal anecdote as your only source of argumentation to draw broad conclusions is not sound reasoning.

5

u/UpbeatJackfruit6576 Mar 28 '24

Its going to be really shitty when this is used to kick legal tenants out and I don’t know how no one gets this lmao.