This is a major problem in Spain. They are called okupas. It can take owners years to get the squatters out. Even worse, the owners have to pay not only the mortgage but all the utility bills related to the house. Usually when they manage to get the squatters out of the home it's completely wrecked. It's well known for owners to pay the squatters off to leave to the tune of thousands of euros. So it is basically a form of extortion. The government keep extending the ridiculous emergency laws that were put in place during covid so landlords could not evict tenants. But many of these are not genuine tenants - they can move in and take over when you just go away for the weekend - and yet they are treated as tenants.
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And, once they're in, I think it's about 48hours before they are considered tenants and you can't evict them! Absolutely mental!
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That's horrific. Thankfully, there are parts of America where property rights are pretty strongly protected, as well as the means to defend them.
I do wonder if this is largely a result of covid era eviction protections in American cities as well.
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Yes. It definitely depends where you are. In Florida I have just changed the locks on commercial tenants.
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New York and California are awful for mom and pop landlords
Some counties and cities have friendly squatters laws.
How can a fake lease be treated like a real contract? It’s madness
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Apparently, in LA the cops aren't even allowed to ask to see the lease.
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Ain't this something you could fix by beating them up?
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there's a group of heavy looking guys in Spain (I forget their name) who you can hire to go around and "deal" with them. Not sure exactly how it works lol but they're on facebook haha They reckon to get rid of them, but it costs..
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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 27 Mar
That's exactly the kind of "service" I had in thought, if legal doesn't work (well enough), people have to do it themselves.
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As long as you don't call the cops first, there are lots of options for how to deal with the situation. People are learning that calling the cops is a mistake.
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I agree. think it thru first
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