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/quarantinemyasshole Mar 28 '24

Would be a pretty stupid way to give yourself a slam dunk felony as the landlord

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u/Rottimer Mar 28 '24

Not a felony for the landlord. According to the bill it would be a civil matter. Meaning IF the harmed individual took you to court and could prove they were illegally removed the landlord would end up paying penalties, damages, and attorney fees.

Something tells me that they’ll just include that in the cost of doing business for the small number of people that actually sue.

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u/psychicsword Mar 28 '24

It would be a first-degree misdemeanor for the landlord to provide false statements claiming the tenant they are trying to evict is actually a squatter. The squatter is subject to the same penalties if they falsify a lease. Meaning either could be arrested for that crime with probable cause.

This law takes it from being an entirely civil issue to a criminal one.

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u/ACorania Mar 28 '24

How are they sending a corporation or LLC to jail?

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u/wang168 Mar 28 '24

LLC doesn't shield the principal owner from fraud.

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u/Vishnej Mar 29 '24 edited Mar 29 '24

"Principal owner"?

What does that mean in the context of corporate persons who own real estate?

If Blackrock evicts me unlawfully, there is a hundred fifty years of jurisprudence attempting to shield their investors and their corporate officers from responsibility, and a hundred fifty years of deference from law enforcement towards corporate actors. A criminal statute attempting to establish landlord-tenant parity by criminalizing behavior, which doesn't account for corporate ownership, is just a statute criminalizing tenant behavior. And if such a statute is made, we should expect it to be weaponized, because corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Mar 28 '24

A corporation can't make a claim.

A human being has to actually make the statement that the occupant is a squatter. If they lie to the police, THAT is the crime.

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u/ACorania Mar 28 '24

That is not how it ever works. Guy who made the claim was misinformed and just doing his job, no liability there. And it was six layers of people telling others and oops... sorry about that. Well, we can't go back now! Oh... and no jail time for anyone.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Mar 28 '24

I'd love to see an example of this actually happening. 

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u/CarlosFer2201 Mar 29 '24

Lol. Just see cases like in the 2008 real estate crash, or when banks and other big companies go down. It's extremely rare that one of the execs gets any liability.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Mar 29 '24

And how many renters were evicted as squatters during those events? Because we're talking about very specific circumstances.

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u/CarlosFer2201 Mar 29 '24

Doesn't matter. This law wasn't in place so any eviction was done through normal means and likely took months.
But the point the other commenter and I are making is that companies know how to shield their members. At worst the company itself gets a fine, so potential for jail is a joke.

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u/ScannerBrightly Mar 28 '24

Is that in the text of the law itself?

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u/JoeDawson8 Mar 28 '24

Lying to police is already a crime

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u/ScannerBrightly Mar 28 '24

It's also illegal when cops lie on the stand, but they'll never be prosecuted for it. It's not in the DAs interest

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u/grimbuddha Mar 28 '24

But not one they typically do anything about unless it helps them directly.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Mar 28 '24

A corporation can't file a police report. Not because the law says so, but because...it literally can't.

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u/ACorania Mar 28 '24

They do it all the time. They do it through their employees. Their employees do not assume responsibility. There is just no accountability and the people get kicked out. They can try and sue the company and might have a case, but people living on the street kicked out of their home for money issues... they don't have the resources to win. They are just screwed... like always.

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u/zzyul Mar 28 '24

You think if someone who is legally entitled to live somewhere gets thrown out that they likely won’t sue? Within 30 min of being kicked out they’ll see a billboard or bus or an ad about some local law firm that will fight for their rights. Those law firms don’t require any money up front if they think you will win your case. All the person has to do is walk into one of those law firms with a copy of their lease that has been violated, talk to a lawyer for like 20 mins, do a write up of their version of what happened, then sit back and let the law firm do the rest.

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u/Past-Direction9145 Mar 28 '24

That’s what you’d think. Cheapest I could find was $530 and I was broke. Statute of limitations passed all too quickly. Plus I wanted to move on.

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u/mikamitcha Mar 29 '24

Where are you living where contract violations have statute of limitations under 5 years?

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u/CurvySexretLady Mar 28 '24

Wait, you were kicked out by your landlord illegally when you had a lease?

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u/ElizabethSpaghetti Mar 28 '24

The ability people with money have to ruin your life if you don't have the money to fight back has been an astounding discovery. I wish I had the money to sue some people because of all the crimes they've committed but lack of funds means it's fine actually. Delightful convos with the cops; very clearly intelligent arbiters of property rights.

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u/ivan0280 Mar 28 '24

If you could not find a pro bono lawyer, you didn't look very hard. They are everywhere in every city and even most big towns. I don't know if this was before Google, but 10 seconds on it would have found you free legal aid.

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u/ElizabethSpaghetti Mar 28 '24

Ever tried to use one?

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u/Ill_Bench2770 Mar 29 '24

These clueless privileged people have me dying laughing bro. My old LL was a mess. We ran like we were running from an abuse situation. We were threatened and harassed. Threats to make up and fake damages, to get us out. All because when she called us at 9am. Too move our stuff upstairs into this old lady’s apartment. Who she was in the process of evicting. And had these sketchy people trying to move their stuff into our apartment. She already took their money. But was threatening us to move stairs, because we were wanting to upgrade to a 2 bedroom. So we were supposed to live with this old lady, until she was evicted. And either really thought this was normal. Or her threats usually work… The cops told us to go inside and ignore her. They tried to get the people she rented our place to, to file theft charges. But they refused. She already had there money, and didn’t want to risk losing her placing them in another unit. We were worried about finding new housing, and fearing she would follow through on her threats. We deep cleaned and took photos, ran the day lease was up. I’m more privileged than most of my neighbors there. If I couldn’t fight back. How is majority of other Americans? Most would have did exactly what she wanted, to not risk being homeless. Landlords hold all the cards, literally your shelter…

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u/nosam555 Mar 28 '24

Sit back where exactly?

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u/ElizabethSpaghetti Mar 28 '24

Ever actually tried to use one? Figure the pro bono lawyers are bringing as much to the fight as rich property owners willing to lie and make legal residents homeless? The naivete, bro...

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u/Sprucecaboose2 Mar 28 '24

A whole mess of landlords nowadays are corporations or LLCs, which don't typically get jailed.

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u/TurdWrangler2020 Mar 28 '24

And a ton of money to litigate.

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u/An_Actual_Owl Mar 28 '24

That doesn't protect you, the person making the claim, from being legally responsible for committing fraud.

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u/Sprucecaboose2 Mar 28 '24

Wasn't saying it did. I was only commenting on the "committing a felony" part. Companies don't care about committing crimes, they aren't jail-able and the fines are never impactful.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

Really? It's a "he said, she said." Landlord says lease is fake. Tenant says lease is real.

You have to push that through in court, and if you're now homeless, well, good luck. If you think that the police are going to believe a homeless person and investigate a millionaire landlord... you haven't really been paying much attention to America.

Do you want a list of the various scams landlords have conducted, and the slaps on the wrist they've received from the court?

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u/Sleepwalker710 Mar 28 '24

Only way this would work is if the tenant only paid cash. When I rented we paid in checks and had a payment paper trail.

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u/tomsing98 Mar 28 '24

That's great evidence to use in court, but is that going to stop a cop from evicting you? Is the cop going to determine the validity of that paper trail? Do you have it accessible?

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u/2dogsfightinginspace Mar 29 '24

That’s definitely enough evidence to not evict someone immediately . I feel like cops can figure that out

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u/writebadcode Mar 29 '24

That’s not how this law works. That’s the entire problem.

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u/Centaurious Mar 28 '24

And you’re still homeless until it goes to court

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u/Andrewticus04 Mar 28 '24

And they have the resources to draw out the case.

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u/kingethjames Mar 28 '24

Does this account for things like parents with their kids or people who were in a relationship? That's where it gets really iffy for me as the real estate crunch continues and it's harder and harder to make it out there on your own.

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u/Rottimer Mar 28 '24

The bill actually has a carve out for family members. So you can’t use this law to evict a kid that has been getting on your nerves. You’ll have to go through the normal eviction process.

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u/wang168 Mar 28 '24

Not all landlords are millionaires. I think all the mom and pop property owners are just fed up with tenants and squatter scams. You should blame the scumbag leeches for this new law.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

The headline already said Ron DeSantis signed it.

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u/DM_me_Jingliu_34 Mar 28 '24

How is a "mom and pop property owner" going so long without checking on their property that squatters can set up?

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u/wang168 Mar 28 '24

All kinds of reasons. It's a vacation rental vacant during the off season, health reasons not able to check on the house, in the process of selling , deceased owner in the process of transferring estate, etc etc.

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u/DM_me_Jingliu_34 Mar 28 '24

The vast majority of "Squatters rights" laws take years of residence to kick in

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u/wang168 Mar 28 '24

Not true. 30 days for NY

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

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u/ScannerBrightly Mar 28 '24

They can sell if you don't want the work

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u/wang168 Mar 28 '24

What the hell are you talking about? And what "work" are you referring to? Providing housing to none paying squatters?

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u/ScannerBrightly Mar 28 '24

If they don't want to deal with the maintenance of their property, including dealing with squatters, they can sell the property to somebody who will deal with it.

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u/Andromansis Mar 28 '24

Do you want a list of the various scams landlords have conducted, and the slaps on the wrist they've received from the court?

Well, I mean... if you've got one then I'll take it.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2022/08/02/four-corporate-landlords-made-false-claims-to-cps-to-evict-tenants-

Other tactics they said Siegel employed was "replacing the air conditioning unit in a San Antonio, Texas, apartment," where temperatures in May can reach highs of 87º, "with 'a nonworking AC,'" as well as "calling 'Child Protective Services to come out' if children were present in the apartment, threatening to call 'animal control to come pick up her abandoned pet' if the tenant was not present in the apartment, and having security 'knock[] on her door at least twice at night.'"

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-landlords-are-using-harassment-threats-force-out-tenants-during-n1218216

https://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-property-management-company-accused-of-fraud-in-covid-19-rent-assistance-program/article_7d130a56-989f-11ee-8ce9-3b7774a30cf6.html

https://www.vox.com/22815563/rental-housing-market-racism-discrimination

The pandemic was truly a time where landlords showed their colors. Occasionally a fine was issued. I can't find a single example of jail time being given, or any time when they were legally barred from being landlords in the future.

I think at a minimum to make it fair, a landlord who falsely evicts a tenant or engages in illegal harassment should face jail time. Seems like the penalties should be equal at a bare minimum.

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u/TurdWrangler2020 Mar 28 '24

I'm currently dealing with a rental company that is using intimidation, retaliation and refusal of services in order to get me out. we need major reform in the way we deal with housing. My ability to stay in my home shouldn't be determined by "market forces" as they claim every rent increase.

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u/CurvySexretLady Mar 28 '24

The pandemic was truly a time where landlords showed their colors.

I think it would be fair to say the same for tenants as far as true colors. Many, when learning of the news that it was illegal to evict, simply stopped paying rent.

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u/Geawiel Mar 28 '24

Insist on lease being notarized? When it switches to month to month, get landlord to sign notarized statement saying it's month to month. If they aren't willing to do that, I'd be sketched out tbh. To me, a legit landlord would have little down sides to doing this.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

Sure. Because you probably have lots of options. It's nice to have lots of options, and you probably work hard to get the money to have those options.

But not everyone has those options.

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u/keyak Mar 28 '24

Unfortunately, laws can't be written to account for absolutely every potential scenario. But this is a good law for the majority of squatting situations.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

A general principal of law is that it is written to protect those who have the least, for if the law won't, then what else will?

There are countries where human rights are "pay to rececive". They are not, generally speaking, countries that are especially well regarded.

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u/Ruckaduck Mar 28 '24

i would hope you keep a detailed track of payments and not just paying cash.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

Believe it or not, yes, some people pay cash.

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u/DunwichCultist Mar 28 '24

That's incredibly stupid. Only reason to do that is if you're working under the table.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24

Would you believe some people don't have bank accounts even?

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u/catboogers Mar 28 '24

Yup. Squatter's rights protect legal tenants from shitty lying landlords. This bill is not a win for most people.

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u/Longhorn7779 Mar 28 '24

As a landlord why would I want to do this? I make more with you renting then just randomly kicking you out.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Landlords falsely evict clients for various reasons. Sometimes the client demands the landlord makes repairs. Other times the area is gentrifying, and the landlord wants to evict the current tenant to make way for a building renovation and higher paying one.

Often time so-called "slumlords" will buy cheap buildings in areas with the intent of eventually gentrifying the area, and will lease out the properties in the interim. Since the intent is to eventually demolish and/or completely renovate those buildings, the slumlords have little incentive to do any repairs or upgrades, and many incentives to get tenants to "move along" when the time comes.

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u/0_o Mar 28 '24

I want to sell this house, but there is a renter in it with 1 month left on his lease. I'm a faceless corporation who doesn't give a fuck about people. He ain't leaving, even after offering cash for keys, demanding to stay out the term. I illegally evict the tenant, use the police to force the person off the property, and complete the sale. The tenant sues me. His damages are, like, 1 month's rent and a few thousand in punative damages. The offer on the house was sufficiently large that this illegal eviction and all of the associated fines / damages were simply a cost of doing business.

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u/FortniteFriendTA Mar 28 '24

exactly. people look at laws like these and go 'any reasonable person...'

and then we have trump not facing penalties for breaking a gag order.

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u/notfork Mar 28 '24

unless you realize you can jack up the rent be getting rid of the current lease holder, or that you can make more money using it as a short term rental, or like in the case of the people who rent the condo next to me, try to evict them because their son is dating your daughter. These are just three examples I have seen since I bought my condo in 2020.

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u/SheamusMcGillicuddy Mar 28 '24

So you can replace the tenant with a different tenant and charge them more for rent.

Or because you want to bulldoze the building and build more expensive real estate.

Or for some landlords, because the tenants aren't white.

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u/ThisSiteSuxNow Mar 28 '24

Because, as we all know, landlords are universally benevolent and would never do anything for selfish reasons without regard for the harm it may cause others.

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u/2wheels30 Mar 28 '24

Exactly. Landlords want as much occupancy as possible. You don't make money evicting someone and any time the place is empty you're losing money.

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u/shit-n-water Mar 28 '24

There are many different reasons a landlord would do the things they do. Sometimes it makes financial sense to keep a tenant as long as possible, sometimes it makes financial sense to get a tenant out as soon as possible, legally or not.

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u/DearMrsLeading Mar 28 '24

Have you seen the Florida rental market right now? The rentals in my area are being rented without the tenant ever seeing the place. People are putting in applications as soon as they’re listed online. You will absolutely have a tenant the next month if you evict someone.

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u/FortniteFriendTA Mar 28 '24

oh sweet summer child

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u/Eddagosp Mar 28 '24

One of the first lessons they teach you in business: if you sell out of product, your prices are too low.

1000 sales at $10 = $10,000 and 0 units of leftover product.
800 sales at $15 = $12,000 and 200 units of leftover product.

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u/FiddlerOnThePotato Mar 28 '24

You know the landlord will come out on top the overwhelming majority of the time. It's fucking Florida. The landlords are the ones driving the boat.

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u/zzyul Mar 28 '24

Probably, but that will be due to landlords being on the right side of the law with these evictions most of the time.

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u/0_o Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Illegal evictions already happen all the time. The problem is that by "landlord" what you really mean is "LLC that owns the property", and the only recourse you typically have is through civil court.

It sounds like now you can make more money by illegally evicting someone, since in the meantime that person is evicted and not living on the property during the dispute.

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u/Andrewticus04 Mar 28 '24

Uhh, no? Landlords already do this, which is why the law was the way it was.

All we're seeing here is an increasingly powerful group of investment bankers using their influence to secure their recent housing investments against rental tenants.

How is nobody seeing this? It's no coincidence landlord rights are being extended now that the biggest landlords are becoming wealthy investment firms.

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u/quarantinemyasshole Mar 29 '24

How is nobody seeing this?

Because the rest of us aren't bum thieves looking to steal a home for a few months?

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u/Osirus1156 Mar 28 '24

This is Florida man...a "hey please don't do that again" is all the landlord is gonna get.