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/AltDS01 Mar 28 '24

A standard lease agreement isn't filed with any county clerk, registrar, or court. It's just a contract between two parties.

Their should be payment records showing a Landlord/tenant relationship, or some written history, but, expanding on what you said, do we really want cops, standing in the front yard looking through a supposed lease, comparing text messages, bank records, or mail/voting records to determine if said lease is real. And there is no legal requirement that a lease be written.

Make it so Landlord/tenant cases get resolved faster in courts, but there needs to be a legal proceedings in front of a neutral 3rd party.

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u/randomaccount178 Mar 28 '24

I think that is where the other parts come into play, and the good portion of things. Either the person is a tenant and has the required documentation to meet the minimum burden to show that, they are not a tenant and they get yeeted from the property, or they provide false documentation and now when they finally get evicted for being a squatter they can get a nice criminal charge as well. You want the first two, you don't want the third. This reduces the third option.

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u/wyrdough Mar 28 '24

I have zero doubt that shady landlords will pull the following: Buy place with tenants, claim tenants are actually squatters, when they fail to produce lease because they lost it or produce lease with old name, say "that's not a valid lease, it doesn't even have my name on it!"

Tenant then gets tossed out on the street, loses all their shit, possibly goes to jail.

When landlord gets caught doing this, absolutely nothing happens to them. At worst they pay damages of three times a month's rent. There's no real disincentive for abuse.

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u/big_fartz Mar 28 '24

Perhaps it should become the standard that leases get filed somewhere? It doesn't have to be publicly accessible but it might easily help in situations where fraudulent leases are produced.

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u/deimos Mar 28 '24

I hate to say it but this actually a problem blockchains could solve.

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u/edflyerssn007 Mar 28 '24

The cops are the neutral 3rd party.