Free Republic

A Georgia homeowner was arrested and charged with criminal trespass after attempting to move back into her home, which was being occupied by an alleged squatter. 'I spent the night on a mat on a concrete floor in deplorable conditions. While this woman, this squatter slept in my home,' Loletha Hale told WSB-TV Atlanta. On December 9, Clayton County police and Sheriff's deputies were called to the home on Livingston Drive after Hale tried to regain access. A deputy, captured on body camera footage, advised Hale to consider the alleged squatter's perspective. 'Just think of it from this perspective, though....

A Kentucky homeowner says he has been forced out of his own home after letting some guests stay in his garage while they fixed their car. Daniel Toma says the guests ended up staying three months and a court order has now taken him out of his house. “I just want this nightmare to end. I’ve been homeless the last few days,” he said. Toma said he wished he never invited his friend, Amy Davis, and her boyfriend, Tyler Sencuk, to his house over the summer. According to Toma, he let them stay at his home until their car could...

States that have permissive policies on squatting—a growing phenomenon in the United States—need to make the practice a criminal offense, the writers of a new report from Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) say.Squatting is occupying an unoccupied or abandoned area of land or a building without having legal permission to use it. Although squatters don’t pay rent and sometimes damage the properties they take over, evicting them can be difficult and costly.Most states are reluctant to allow criminal prosecution of squatters as trespassers and prefer treating incidents as landlord and tenant disputes. Police who wish to avoid potentially violent confrontations often...

A months-long Airbnb rental has become a nightmare for the North Carolina host, because the renters refuse to leave. A single parent in the Triangle is out money and now is having to fight to get her property back. "Now they're refusing to leave until there's an eviction order. I think they're just trying to gain time to stay there for free because they haven't paid," Farzana Rahman said. This all started when Rahman's most recent Airbnb guests made a long-term rental reservation through Airbnb. They checked in on October 25 with a check out date of May 24. When...

Cry me a Rio Grande river. The jailed Venezuelan “migrant influencer” who viciously mocked America to his 500,000 TikTok followers and urged border crossers to “invade abandoned houses” now misses the glorious liberties he enjoyed in the US – whining to The Post this week that “I miss my freedom!” Leonel Moreno moaned that he is a victim of unjust “persecution” Wednesday during a 30-minute-long video televisit from inside Geauga County Jail in Chardon, Ohio.

Florida recently passed a law that eliminates squatter's rights.. Squatting laws have become a frequent target of exploitation by savvy criminals who fraudulently move into vacant homes across the nation. Experts warn that the problem could be compounded by the ongoing immigration crisis, with migrants catching wind of the laws and taking advantage of them. "I have thought about invading a house in the United States," migrant Leonel Moreno said in Spanish in a TikTok video that went viral last month. "I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can...

An anti-squatting "professional" is warning homeowners against taking squatters to court, amid ongoing issues relating to property rights. Flash Shelton, who describes himself as a professional squatter remover, on Wednesday spoke to Fox News' America's Newsroom about how to handle squatting incidents and different ways to remove uninvited dwellers from your home. "First thing, call law enforcement, it's dangerous, don't do anything yourself, it's property, don't risk your life. Call law enforcement and when they tell you there's nothing they can do, contact SquatterHunters.com, let us assess the situation, before you hire an attorney and go to civil process," Shelton...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has had a busy month, signing 38 bills into law in March. Ranging from giant wine bottles to homeless encampment bans to ending squatting in Florida, all the signed laws represent a multitude of issues residents have been bringing to light.

The practice of squatting — or living in a home against the wishes of homeowners, often being protected by Byzantine civil statutes — is becoming a trend in the U.S. However, upon the passage of a bipartisan state law in Florida that effectively bans the ability for unwanted house guests to stay as long as they want, a self-described anti-squatting activist and "professional" squatter-remover told Fox News he hopes more states will follow suit. Flash Shelton first encountered squatting when individuals made themselves at home long-term at his mother's California house after his father died. Shelton recounted to "America Reports"...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation into law Wednesday that ends squatters’ rights in the Sunshine State, stating that “squatting” is a scam that violates private property rights. After alarming stories about squatters commandeering homes and depriving the owners of their property rights made nationwide news in recent weeks, DeSantis took action. “We are in the state of Florida are ending this squatters scam once and for all. And momentarily I’ll be signing HB 621, which will give the homeowner the ability to quickly and legally remove a squatter from a property and which will increase criminal penalties for squatting,”...

If you own a home and don’t want to lose it, keep reading. Homeowners who go on vacation or a business trip, even for just a week, are returning to find their house overtaken by trespassers who fraudulently claim a right to be there. It’s happening to tens of thousands of homeowners from New York City to Atlanta and Los Angeles. When owners call the police, they’re told police can’t help. It’s a civil matter, and they have to file an eviction lawsuit, which can drag on for months or years because housing courts are backlogged. Meanwhile, owners are out...

A “greedy and grotesque” LA woman has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for fraudulently obtaining real-estate property in a multimillion-dollar squatting scheme that included dismembering and disposing of a body. Caroline Joanne Herrling, 44, of West Hills was sentenced Friday to 240 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,887,051 in restitution for the elaborate racket, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a statement. “This defendant’s misconduct was both greedy and grotesque, causing profound pain to the victims and their loved ones,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said.

Landlords are now beating squatters at their own game. They are learning how to turn the tables by squatting on the squatters. This concept of invading the homes of the squatters was made very public by Mr. Flash Shelton: He became a national inspiration to landlords when he employed bold strategies to evict a mother-daughter grifter team from his mother’s family home. The dramatic event was recorded by Mr. Shelton and uploaded on YouTube. His amateur production of outwitting the mother-daughter grifter team offered a glimpse of what could be accomplished when the injured party (i.e. landlord) refuses to be...

“The Florida Legislature unanimously passed a bill that would allow police to immediately remove squatters — a departure from the lengthy court cases required in most states.” For some inexplicable reason, squatters’ rights laws are commonplace throughout these United States. In many states, a person or persons can enter and inhabit another person’s vacant property, set up house, and after—in most cases—a mere 30 days claim some form of bizarre “right” to inhabit the home in which they did not pay a day’s rent nor a single mortgage payment: a home they do not own, did not buy, and have...

The legal homeowner recently had been arrested for unlawful eviction after trying to remove the squatters Two of the three squatters who allegedly took over a woman’s $1 million home in New York City fled the property after recently having a tense stand-off with the property’s owner and facing "vigilantes" who tried to evict the illegal tenants, a new report details. Adele Andaloro, 47, said her property in Flushing, Queens, had been taken over by a group of squatters while the woman tried to sell the property last month. The home had been owned by Andaloro’s parents, who had left...

A TikTok influencer is advising illegal immigrants on how to 'invade' American homes and invoke squatter's rights, making it difficult for them to be removed from properties. Leonel Moreno, who goes by @leitooficial_25 online and appears to be a Venezuelan migrant, has told undocumented immigrants that under US law, 'if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it'. He is referring to squatter's rights, or adverse possession laws - a common law principle that allows an illegal inhabitant to acquire ownership of a property based on continuous occupation without the legal owner's consent. Moreno, alleging he has friends who...

Lawmakers in Florida are finally addressing the problem of squatting, one of the most egregious property rights violations going on in America today. This month, both chambers of the state Legislature unanimously passed a bill allowing law enforcement to immediately remove squatters without waiting weeks or months for a case to move through the courts, according to WJXT-TV. If signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the measure would go into effect on July 1. The move comes as a relief to Florida property owner Patti Peeples, who dealt with squatters last year. “It gives me a real feeling of positive hope...

A couple allegedly squatting in a Bronx public housing complex abused and neglected their two young girls so severely that the starving youngsters were forced to eat their filthy foam mattress, prosecutors charged on Monday. The girls — three and four years old — were bruised, naked and covered in feces when cops and city workers finally rescued them May 3 from a “house of horrors” at NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said. Now, their mom Stephanie Grabowski and her beau, Mark Russell, have been indicted on a slew of criminal charges, including kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A new bill in the Oregon legislature is proposed as the Right to Rest Act. House Bill 3501 would decriminalize camping in public places. Under HB3501, homeless individuals would be able to have "a privacy interest and a reasonable expectation of privacy in any property belonging to the person, regardless of whether the property is located in a public space" – i.e., granting the individual rights to treat public spaces like a private residence "without discrimination and time limitations that are based on housing status." Homeless individuals would also be able to sue for up to $1,000...

A Las Vegas man is calling for squatters rights to be updated after several squatters moved into his mother’s California home. Flash Shelton, founder of the United Handyman Association, said he was staked outside of his mother's home waiting to see when the squatters would leave before taking action. Shelton explained that as soon as he saw the squatters pull out of the driveway, he entered the residence and began installing security cameras. He told the two women who returned to get their stuff out of the home or he would take it out himself.