This isn't really about squatters rights (legal rules like adverse possession). It's laws which protect tenat rights being exploited by squatters who falsely claim to have a lease. And I don't think it should be controversial that if you *do* have a valid lease the police shouldn't just trust whatever the landlord says and help kick you out (your property interests in the contract are now less important than the landlord's interests in the real property).
Luckily, even without fixing the overwhelmed court system, there is an easy solution thaf should make everyone happy. States should create a registry of both real property ownership (which they essentially already have) and of all rental leases -- or at least ones that come with eviction protection.
If there isn't a valid lease registered in the system under your name then the police can assume you're a squatter and take action. If there is one you do the normal eviction thing. And it requires approval of the property owner to enter such a lease into the system but the renter can check to verify it's entered before paying up.
I agree with the headline. But the word “squatters” is doing a lot of work here. Most of the situations discussed in this piece are legally distinct from each other, some are closer to an alleged breach of contract, while others seem to just be straight up trespassing. But one person’s holdover tenant is another person’s squatter, and we should be precise in our language when discussing a topic.
I also do not think that this is, numerically, quite the problem people make it out to be.
The common thread is they're all claiming squatters rights. In NY, CA, GA, CO, and some other states, it's gotten crazy enough that the news is finally covering it.
e.g. A person is trespassing for the first 29 days in NY, but on day 30 they're a tenant.
No, they are doing no such thing. They are mostly claiming to be renters with a valid lease.
The issue in NY is they have a presumption in favor of such a lease existing for anyone who has their stuff in a place and has lived their for 30 days. I get that it may feel similar in practice to the homeowner but it is different.
Basically none of this is someone admitting: I'm totally just squating here nah nah.
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Those rules made some sense in an earlier age when there was just no effective way to maintain a useful database of rental agreements without impossing large costs. But we live in a digital age. Absolutely no reason that renters and landlords can't submit their lease online to the state for recording so the state actually knows if they really are a renter or not. I get that it makes life a bit harder for subletters but, frankly, if we could eliminate some rent control abuse along the way it's worth it.
The NY law is ridiculous. In MA, it’s 20 years to establish rights to someone else’s property. Still technically “squatters’ rights,” but virtually impossible to ever establish for taking over a home. How anyone thought 30 days was appropriate is beyond me.
watching parts of the urbanist community embrace a sort of Marxism-lite and reject the field of economics has been extremely disheartening over the last decade or so. tbh, it's sort of alienated me from the cause. I think the reluctance of urbanists to weigh in on squatting is part of a larger issue of urbanism being derailed by larger culture war battles
This isn't really about squatters rights (legal rules like adverse possession). It's laws which protect tenat rights being exploited by squatters who falsely claim to have a lease. And I don't think it should be controversial that if you *do* have a valid lease the police shouldn't just trust whatever the landlord says and help kick you out (your property interests in the contract are now less important than the landlord's interests in the real property).
Luckily, even without fixing the overwhelmed court system, there is an easy solution thaf should make everyone happy. States should create a registry of both real property ownership (which they essentially already have) and of all rental leases -- or at least ones that come with eviction protection.
If there isn't a valid lease registered in the system under your name then the police can assume you're a squatter and take action. If there is one you do the normal eviction thing. And it requires approval of the property owner to enter such a lease into the system but the renter can check to verify it's entered before paying up.
Welcome to the upside-down.
I agree with the headline. But the word “squatters” is doing a lot of work here. Most of the situations discussed in this piece are legally distinct from each other, some are closer to an alleged breach of contract, while others seem to just be straight up trespassing. But one person’s holdover tenant is another person’s squatter, and we should be precise in our language when discussing a topic.
I also do not think that this is, numerically, quite the problem people make it out to be.
The common thread is they're all claiming squatters rights. In NY, CA, GA, CO, and some other states, it's gotten crazy enough that the news is finally covering it.
e.g. A person is trespassing for the first 29 days in NY, but on day 30 they're a tenant.
No, they are doing no such thing. They are mostly claiming to be renters with a valid lease.
The issue in NY is they have a presumption in favor of such a lease existing for anyone who has their stuff in a place and has lived their for 30 days. I get that it may feel similar in practice to the homeowner but it is different.
Basically none of this is someone admitting: I'm totally just squating here nah nah.
--
Those rules made some sense in an earlier age when there was just no effective way to maintain a useful database of rental agreements without impossing large costs. But we live in a digital age. Absolutely no reason that renters and landlords can't submit their lease online to the state for recording so the state actually knows if they really are a renter or not. I get that it makes life a bit harder for subletters but, frankly, if we could eliminate some rent control abuse along the way it's worth it.
The NY law is ridiculous. In MA, it’s 20 years to establish rights to someone else’s property. Still technically “squatters’ rights,” but virtually impossible to ever establish for taking over a home. How anyone thought 30 days was appropriate is beyond me.
watching parts of the urbanist community embrace a sort of Marxism-lite and reject the field of economics has been extremely disheartening over the last decade or so. tbh, it's sort of alienated me from the cause. I think the reluctance of urbanists to weigh in on squatting is part of a larger issue of urbanism being derailed by larger culture war battles