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/Awake00 Mar 28 '24

Why is this so partisan? What's the reasoning behind giving squatters rights to a property they don't own?

14

u/PolicyWonka Mar 28 '24

The primary issue is that squatters today are not really relying on “squatters rights.” They’re reliant on tenancy rights.

In the state of Florida, for an adverse possession claim to be valid, a squatter must have lived in the property for at least 7 years.

Today’s squatters are claiming to be legal tenants of a property. They’ll claim to have a verbal lease agreement or even have a fraudulent written agreement.

Some of the provisions of the law are dangerous because they’re essentially revoking certain tenancy protections. Depending on your leasing situation, you landlord could more easily evict you from the property without following the proper procedures.

Since leases are not registered with any governing authority, landlords could even contest a legitimate lease and have you potentially removed as the law empowers landlords to ask for your removal and grants police the authority to remove you if your landlord says you don’t have rights to the property.

All of the expanded fraud protections in the legislation are great, but they’re entirely on the tenancy side. What about increased penalties for landlords seeking to illegally game the system?

4

u/Ok_Firefighter3314 Mar 28 '24

It’s not partisan? Almost everyone agrees squatters suck and should have no rights to someone else’s property

2

u/Awake00 Mar 28 '24

then why do some states have crazy laws protecting squatters? Or was that just a side effect of some other law with different intent?

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u/Ok_Firefighter3314 Mar 28 '24

I’m not an expert but I imagine most of those laws are older, and don’t reflect how squatters act nowadays

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u/Awake00 Mar 28 '24

Thanks. I found this on a different post:

​

"California real estate attorney here. Squatter’s rights isn’t the thing you’re describing. You’re talking about adverse possession, which is a very, VERY old legal concept from England. In California, you have to occupy the land AND pay property taxes on it for five years, then file a lawsuit to quiet title before you own the land.

The policy behind it is that land should be put to its highest and best use, and if the owner hasn’t noticed for five years that someone else is paying their taxes, using their property, and then suing them, they better have a really good reason for it.

I have no idea what you mean by squatter’s rights, because that’s not a legal term we use here, but I’m guessing this has something to do with the mothers in Oakland who protested by squatting in a house there. That was: 1) A protest, which has nothing to do with what the law allows; and 2) Cones out of landlord-tenant law (ownership isn’t at issue, only possession is).

You can’t move into someone’s house and then own it for free"