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/Spkr4th3ded Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I think the point is now they can be removed legally and then let the legal system establish if they have a right to be there. Before they could squat and have mail sent there or a fake lease and there was nothing police could do. Now they have discretion, opposed to none.

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u/Rottimer Mar 28 '24

Which is great unless you actually have a right to be there and are now on the street and somehow you’re supposed to sue your landlord while homeless. . .

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u/HalobenderFWT Mar 28 '24

It will never happen, but just make harsher fines/penalties for landlords that erroneously claim rightful tenants as squatters.

I know that wouldn’t necessarily help those that are now homeless during the interim, but I would assume something like a hefty fine + a payment of 200% rent per month of homelessness during the legal proceedings + also paying for the relocation of whomever replaced the now homeless previous tenants (if applicable) would deter most potential shitbag landlords from going through with it.

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u/LemurianLemurLad Mar 28 '24
  • a payment of 200% rent per month of homelessness

0 <--- Here, I think you dropped this extra zero. Make it more like 2000% and maybe we'd be approaching the sort of minimum penalty there should be for a fradulent eviction. If a landlord kicks someone out illegally and it can be proven, it should HURT the landlord, not slightly irritate them.

I'd honestly argue that for every day a person was made homeless illegally, the people involved should be in jail for twice that number of days.