Imagine this for a moment…You inherit a family member’s house after they pass, and instead of moving in, you decide to sell it. Of course, that takes some time, as you must first get all of the legal requirements dealt with – the will must be probated, the paperwork must be properly executed and in good order, then you need to find a realtor you like, maybe repair a thing or two before placing the house on the market, and so on. After several weeks (or possibly months) of working to get all of this accomplished, you go by the house to start removing unwanted furniture, clothing, etc., but when you walk up to the front door and try to put the key into the lock, your key doesn’t work.
You say to yourself, I must have tried the wrong key. Let me try another. But it wasn’t the wrong key. No. Instead, you realize that someone changed the lock on the door! You cannot get into your house! So you knock on the door, and to your shock, the door opens and you are standing face to face with a complete stranger. You demand they leave, of course, but astonishingly, they refuse. They say it’s their house and has been for weeks now, even though they never asked your permission, or signed a lease, or paid a penny to live there.
The nightmare continues, when you call the police to report a trespassing, only to have the police tell you that they are powerless to do anything, since the “trespassers” have been there for more than 30 days. Thanks to New York State law, those occupants of your house are not trespassers, nor are they breaking the law. Nope. Just the opposite. They are now your tenants, and they possess all of the amazing “rights” that the lawmakers in Albany have bestowed upon tenants, to the severe detriment of landlords.
So now you are a landlord, even though you never met the people who are living in your property, you never got to run a credit check on them to see if they can afford to pay the rent, you never got to do a criminal background check to see if they have an undesirable history which could open you up to liability, etc. As a landlord, in order to get these squatters out of your house, you must now hire an attorney and go through the very lengthy and quite costly expense to sue them. Evictions take months upon months, not days or weeks. As a landlord, you are obligated to maintain the property until the eviction is complete. So you must continue to pay the property taxes, the mortgage, the insurance, upkeep on the grounds, heat working, water flowing, etc. In other words, you must pay for these total strangers to live for free. Indefinitely!
This nightmare situation is known as squatting, and not only is it real, it’s becoming extremely common place. I was recently on NTD News to discuss this criminal phenomenon. You can watch that interview here.
Click HERE to continue reading the full article on the Brownstone Institute.