Below is my column in USA Today on the growing “squatting” trend across the country. The crime has been raging in Europe for many years and it is now becoming something of an epidemic in the United States. It is not legally difficult to combat, but it has proven politically challenging in many cities. The result for homeowners has been a nightmare with little deterrence or assistance from government officials.
Here is the column:
In Texas, a homeowner says she was locked out of her house by a squatter who claimed to have a lease after moving to the state with her family (the woman previously had been evicted from three other homes).
In Maryland, a woman returned from vacation to find two squatters in her bed. They were not only living in her house but also had sold about $50,000 of her furniture.
It is a pattern being played out in many cities in the United States. It also is common in Europe, where squatting has become a political movement with support from the left.
Some squatters enter legally and then just stay. In Long Island, New York, Guramrit Hanspal, 52, has not paid his mortgage for 25 years. The mortgage was foreclosed, but the company that now owns the home has struggled for decades to evict Hanspal, who continues to change lawyers and file lawsuits to delay proceedings.
“I think (squatting is) a fairly big problem, and I think it’s pretty hard to avoid,” Jim Burling, vice president of legal affairs for the Pacific Legal Foundation, told Fox News.
In the case of Rabbi Meyer Leifer, 90, he simply gave Roselee Moskowitz, 67, a place to live when she found herself temporarily homeless during the pandemic. She then just stayed and refused to leave. Mosokowitz reportedly occupies the rabbi’s living room and sits on his couch watching his television.
Prosecutors and politicians play a critical role in these scams. Local authorities have done little to assist homeowners for a variety of reasons – from political calculations to negligence. Instead, they force landowners to go into overtaxed housing courts with notoriously slow dockets. It often takes months or years to get an eviction order.
The resulting lack of deterrence is evident in the brazen attitude of these criminals. A retiree friend of mine was away from her home in Sarasota, Florida, when a squatter moved in and refused to leave. The woman falsely claimed that she had a lease and trashed the home. Eventually, she was arrested but promptly released. She then returned and stole my friend’s car. The police said there was likely little that would happen to the squatter.
The people involved are committing crimes, from breaking and entering to fraud to forgery. Yet, they are rarely prosecuted.
Squatting is not a particularly difficult problem to solve. It simply requires police and prosecutors to enforce existing laws.
In a recent case in Houston, a teacher, Amberlyn Prather, reportedly squatted in a luxury home for months with her family. The property owner said she repeatedly changed the locks only to have the squatters gain entry by climbing on the roof and entering through upper windows. In this case, authorities have a person accused of forging a lease. That should not be difficult to prosecute.
Cities can speed process of reviewing property owners’ rights
Cities can create new legal avenues to address this crime. The key is to force action at the outset. Cities can set up rapid response teams with prosecutors making immediate judgments on lawful possession. They also can fast-track the cases to bring parties into court rapidly.
If a car owner called police to report that someone was sitting in their vehicle without permission, police would make a decision on the spot about ownership based on the registration and other documents. They would not allow the person to drive off and tell the owner to work it out in court.
And it is far less important to return the possession of a car than a home.
Yet, authorities in New York did little to help Marjorie Martin as she sought for three years to evict squatters. It didn’t matter that Christine Rock allegedly filed fraudulent paperwork with the forged signatures of Martin’s mom, father and sister – all of whom had been dead for more than a decade. Rock was accused of putting the utilities in her name and then ignoring the bills.
When Rock was finally arrested, the city hit Martin with a more than $25,000 water bill that was left unpaid by the squatter.
She is not alone. Owners are told that they must continue to pay taxes and other costs for their property, and squatters delay any final orders through failures to appear, changes of counsel and other practices. In the case of Lia Hatzakis, 29, a squatter offered to make up for not paying for the utilities he used by dating her while he lived in her home. She declined.
There is little evidence of legislative action in many cities. However, Democrats in Congress have moved to pass a federal housing law − to bar landlords from learning whether potential tenants have criminal records, which would include past squatter offenses.
The common nuisance of squatting reflects a breakdown in basic deterrence of our laws. Property offenses have been steadily downgraded as priorities in many cities, while prosecutions are viewed as politically risky for officials who do not want to be viewed as targeting people who are homeless.
Before these cases become a movement like the one in Europe, local and state authorities will have to act. Squatters defend their actions as proper when done according to their own standards. When a woman in England called her squatter to object to his conduct, “Michael” was insulted and left her a message stating, “Just so you know, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’ve done it the right way.”
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University Law School.
I would simply hire a couple of tough guys acting as squatters (role players, including dress and appearance) to take over the house when the squatters are out, including an “If I see your face around here again, I’ll mess it up good” parting message. You inform the local police of this plan, so they can’t be duped.
lol – Yes, all the Sorros DA’s will love it, the city, the police will surely back you…
HAHAHAHAHAHA
go to jail is the answer for your plan
Don’t get me wrong my friends and I would do it for free, there are no doubt millions of us across the nation. It would be immediate not waiting. Yes we would have quite the numerical and size advantage.
No one allows justice except the other way around now.
If any small flyover authorities do, you won’t hear about it and no one will care, it’s in the sticks.
I was on a house call this man had local political connections I believe he was a newspaper writer for the somewhat rural city (25k pop) surrounded by farms (not a big city area suburb). As I’m working a local guy from law enforcement was running for Sheriff, he was friends with my client and was there visiting. As conversation ensued the would be sheriff noted recently a few blocks from the police station around the seven eleven some perp tried to rob some guy, a common area for the same, part of downtown. The guy getting robbed had martial artist skills and broke the arm and induced other injuries in the thief who failed, the cops arrested the criminal. The guy running for Sheriff was impressed and laughing about it and said to my client he wanted to hire the “ninja”.
The successful defender wasn’t charged of course, it never entered the thought process or the conversation. It was an considered excellent outcome. The newspaper story was present and has a similar tone.
That’s the America we should be living in. I don’t think a sheriff deputy should ninja suspects, but you get the idea – not afraid and capable don’t worry about that one getting stomped.
OT: The preliminary injunction just issued by Judge Doughty in Missouri v Biden is a major development in the fight against government control of speech. It confirms that the government may not coerce, encourage or induce private actors to do what the government itself is not permitted to do. Some on this blog denied that this could be the law.
Some on this blog say that influence peddling is perfectly legal and that Hunter was framed and that the virus came from a “wet market” and that the 2020 election was 100% fairly run. We know who they are and why they say that.
My wife had squatters in a house she inherited from her mother in a Chicago suburb. The family, who I understand were mostly Middle Eastern with a white wife, rented the house legitimately then after they got in, they simply didn’t pay rent. She finally got them evicted. The sheriff told her the family made a practice of squatting. Then one of our neighbor’s houses somehow turned up as a lease house. He and his wife had moved back to Long Island and put the house up for sale. Somebody managed to lay claim to it. Two black women claimed they had rented it but they weren’t able to get in. I don’t know what all happened but my neighbor and his wife came back to Texas and are living in their house. My wife finally got rid of that Chicago albatross but now she has cancer from worrying about it.
Dumbocrats, please.
Just another step in destroying Western Culture. We know it yet we do very little by way of effective push back to stop it. Those working to destroy us understand only one thing – FORCE against them in a profound and efficient manner. Talking to them is as useless as talking to a broken phone. We are losing the battle, but politely.
Private Property rights are the bane to leftist goals, It is nothing but pure racial, colonialism. Voting used to be predicated on owning property. Under the “skin in the game” tenet of the constitution, found in the emanations out of the, penumbra.
That is the motivation of city councils. If you own real property you are rich, therefore racist, therefore the govt abusing you because of your sins, is a feature, not a bug.
See sanctioned looting in cities. As Turley notes on this issue, the fix is easy, just enforce the facts.
I wonder who squatters vote for?
Reparation agitators.
“Cities can speed process of reviewing property owners’ rights”…..as noted by another Poster…..Communists reject the notion of ownership of private property.
Odd….the problem doesn’t seem to happen in solidly Red areas as much as it does in solidly Blue areas…..prove me wrong….I shall wait!
Were a Squatter attempt to commit such an act at my place….at my advanced age prison doesn’t hold as much deterrence to me it once did.
If the Squatters were hauled away by either EMS or the Coroner their eviction notice would have been served and completed.
Criminal cases take years too sometimes especially if you have a good Lawyer and a sympathetic Jury.
A Jury of my Peers would demand that Jury was comprised of Property Owners would it not?
I predict this trend will lead to more vigilantism and thus more violence.
You mean go to prison and lose your home while the squatter lives in it ?
HAHAHAHA
Nice try.
The mob doesn’t have it’s omerta code on the local streets, and as far as counting on someone to keep their yappers shut and their phones and all the cameras out of reach and sight not going to happen. So anyone trying has doorbell cams in the whole neighborhood to worry about.
The years of MEN taking care of it are long gone.
Oh yes we could, plenty willing and would love to, but then there’s the thin blue line (don’t do our jobs we don’t do) and sorros prosecutors – the cities LOVE not having to deal with another homeless.
What it leads to is more emasculation and government power and public hatred and no solution.
We don’t have half the feds and a military branch to evict within 24 hours like Martha’s Vineyard and the fake refugees from Texas or Florida. HAHAHAHAHA
MORE VIOLENCE…. hahahahaahah
Nothing complicated with this problem. It is just an extension of the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy now typical of the Democratic party and, not surprisingly, communism. Combine that strategy with an underlying hatred of any form of power (to include property rights) they can not control and voila! Unprosecuted squatters.
Communism’s big man, Karl Marx, not only had a negative view of individual property rights, he was a squatter himself in the sense that throughout much of his life he ‘squatted’ on the financial infusions from Friedrich Engels’s business and inheritance. What a magnificent irony, the very men (Marx and Engels) that embody the antithesis of individual rights and freedoms lived off the properties and sweat of other men engaged in capitalistic endeavors.
So the “Democrat party” is to blame for squatters? Two of the incidents Turley relates are in ruby-red Texas and Florida. And, Turley DOES try to tie in a dig at “the left” and Democrats, but, as usual, it’s lame.
Ben and Jerry say we are all squatters and that we must give the country back to the “Indigenous Peoples”.
Are democrats to blame ?
Well these problems occur near exclusively in dominions controlled by the left.
There is a pretty clear cause and effect relationship.
When left wing nut government refuse to enforce laws – the results are a massive moral hazard – and that is what we are seeing.
At the same time – THAT is your argument ? That is not democrats fault ?
Fine, then join the rest of us and lets prosecute these people criminally – Criminal standards are higher – so it will be necescary to PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt unlawful posession, theft, or Fraud. But if proven these people will go to jail. That should put a dent in this.
If you do not want to be blamed – jkoin the rest of us in trying to enforce the law and solve the problem.
But YOU are to blame for other reasons too.
You are Constantly telling people that they are entitled to whatever they want.
They are entitled to a job, to medical care, to college, to change their sex,
That their whim is sufficient to be entitled to whatever they demand.
Why should the people that you have told are entitled to whatever they want, not take someone else’s house ?
I agree with you almost totally, but in the case of the recent trend for massive asset managing firms like BlackRock buying up properties at above market price so they can dominate the housing market to assure only their rentals are available, I think squatting seems a reasonable guerrilla tactic against such monstrous hypertrophic shams of free market ideology.
(I do assume that their elite connections would get any such squatters prosecuted rapidly unlike the case of we normal citizens, however…)
I have zero interest in Blackrock or others who engage in what the left calls predatory capitalism.
Absent government that is a SELF PUNISHING ACT.
The London Whale tried a variation on the same thing with JP Morgan trying to corner some comodities markets.
JP Morgan lost Billions – because Other Hedge Fund managers caught on.
Those who FORESEE the market will profit handsomely, Those who try to control the market will get slaughtered by it.
There is actually centuries of economic data confirming this.
There is a reason that after the initial surge in anti-trust in the early 20th century that fell out of vogue int eh mid century.
Because not only didn’t anti=trust work, but actual economic research proved the fundimental premises were bogus.
The specific scenario you are touting – ultimate DOES NOT WORK.
Black Rock is ACTUALLY doing one of two things.
Either they CORRECTLY grasp that rental properties are greatly undervalued – in which case they will profit handsomely,
or they are as the London Whale was trying to control the market – in which case they will get obliterated by that market.
Lets presume for a second that blackrock has the abilty to buy enough rental properties at overmarket values to profit.
How do they profit ? They raise rents ? If they do TWO things happen. More housing units get built because they are more profitable and lower risk than assumed, and – more people move from renting to owning – because the higher rents are the more attractive home ownership is.
Further – in truth more than TWO things happen, many many mahy things happen – all of which work towards lowering Blackrocks profits,
So how is it that Blackrock can actually profit ?
Simple – because government – either on its own or in cahoots with Blackrock thwarts the automatic efforts of markets to compensate.
Government can control the supply and protect blackrock from natural market consequences.
Regardless,
predatory capitalism
has been incredibly thoroughly studied over the past century. Absent govenrment it does not exist – because it does not work.
I would suggest studying Public Choice economics. Which is essentially how human nature – which in a free market automatically harnesses our self interest to public good, works EXACTLY the opposite in Government.
We need government to thwart ONE aspect of human nature – the propensity to use FORCE to acheive our self interest.
But Government IS FORCE. The problem we use Government to thwart in the free market manifests itself in GOVERNMENT not markets.
That is not ideology, it is just fact, logic, reason.
The proof that Turley was Wrong in his “digs” at the left would be your outrage at the theft and fraud going on.
That is missing, So it seems Turley is correct.
The tail wagging the dog in today’s “Amerika”. I would start with Belgian water cannons and go up from there. The police have enough to deal with and besides, it’s a “civil matter” right ?. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
While it might disturb the neighbors, perhaps extra loud music would result in a Noriega-style successful eviction.
“When Rock was finally arrested, the city hit Martin with a more than $25,000 water bill that was left unpaid by the squatter.”
Then, sentence squatters to hard labor to pay for their bills or damage.
Why not just go ahead and harvest their organs for a quick cash settlement?
The problem will be solved the moment this happens to the politician who allows it to happen.
Come on. The local cops in that case or Sheriffs will just quietly enforce the law.
Probably give them an extra blanket at the shelter, no, just lock em up to shut em up with a long listing of resisting charges and obstructing an investigation.
That dream won’t work in this case.
Agreed, but even there is no guarantee that the kind of quick resolution a politician would receive becomes the model to be applied for we ordinary folk.
This is an attack on personal property. The wealth gap is more substantial today because there are more poor people and more wealthy people and fewer in the middle. The poor tend to be communist in that they think property is communal so there’s no fear in taking from others. This is a time to hunker down and protect your property because things will get worse before they improve.
We are more likely talking about (certainly in the article and link) middle class or higher, and they have legal paperwork skills and knowledge of the ways to work the law, so backing from NGO’s, agitation groups, community organizers…
“The poor” squat in abandoned places usually marked for demolition.
At one link it’s a 90 year old rabbi and the squatter is obviously of the faith and it’s a really expensive place and she is dressed to the nines not a poor person.
It’s news because the upscale important people are being bamboozled by their ( equals ). I’m not claiming it’s all millionaires and elites, I’m saying this isn’t the ghetto crew taking over mansions.
I find it difficult to justify having legislators talk about making more laws when they won’t enforce the ones we have. This includes the border, destruction in the name of protest, “decriminalizing” drugs and any number of laws that are ignored.
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote a story in 1952, “The Parasite”.
The story is about a man named Reb Mendel who is a poor Talmudic scholar and a young man named Yakov who lives off of the kindness of others and never works. One day, Yakov comes to town and asks Reb Mendel if he can stay with him. Reb Mendel agrees, and Yakov moves in.
Eventually, Reb Mendel and his family want to get rid of Yaokov. They try everything they can think of, but nothing works. Yakov simply refuses to leave.
The story ends with the stranger still living in Reb Mendel’s house.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose or, in tribute to Issac Bashevis Singer, the Yiddish writer. וואָס גייט אַרום קומט אַרום
How can anybody vote for a democrat in their right mind?
How rhetorical, can you get? A democrat in her right mind, is Tulsi Gabbard. The rest of them are nuckinfuts. 😉
She used to be. Now she’s an independent.
As soon as you notice squatters in a property call the police & tell them there is a burglary going on there. If squatters don’t have a forged lease or utilities bills in their name to show police, they will be arrested.
You know it’s bad when you are required to lie to save your own skin in the game.
Illegally entering property IS burglary, so it’s not a lie.
Then you would have no problem arresting and jailing these people.
As you note – this SHOULD not be a partisan matter.
But it IS if democrats are unwilling to enforce the law.
I don’t understand how the police can refuse to enforce the law because it’s a “civil matter.” Is trespassing no longer a crime?
Tim, evidently not!
When a squatter waves a lease, or some other document, in the face of the police claiming that it gives the squatter the legal right to occupy the premises the police are done and it becomes an issue for civil court. Police don’t have the jurisdiction to determine whether a document is legal or not, that’s the legal loophole that squatters are intentionally abusing.
Steve you speak from experience. What about a competing lease? As the owner with a title I can in fact lease it to another family (Friend)
If the lease holders show up with 40 “friends” move all the squatters stuff out and the new lease holder stuff in…it could be done quickly. Cops , like you say couldn’t do much.
“It often takes months or years to get an eviction order.”
In a better culture, a S&W is the eviction order.
As of today, I am a landlord in Washington, DC. I currently own a two unit, moderately priced, fully renovated building in a gentrified section of the city. The D.C. government prohibits me from denying a lease to someone whose only source of income is a voucher issued by the city and who has bad credit and a criminal record. So, rather than surrender my asset to a criminal with bad credit, I am selling the building to an owner who will occupy it. Two more moderately priced rental units are thus taken off the rental market. Meanwhile, the city leaders cry about the diminishing supply of moderately priced housing. It may be cruel to say this, but these guys just are not too smart. They do not get it. They are good at identifying problems, but not so good at realizing that they are the cause of the problem.
Yet another breakdown in civilized society caused by democrats.
EV: you mean the Democrats in Florida and Texas, two cases cited by Turley? Last time I checked, Texas and Florida were both run by Republicans.
Both TX and FL as entire states are majority Republican.
Neither is 90% republican, or even 50% republican.
In both significant portions of the state – mostly populous cities are controlled by democrats – as are nearly all cities populous or not in the US.
Crime has not spiked specifically in Blue States. IT has spike specifically in Blue communities. Counties that voted democratic have 50% more crime than counties that voted republican – regardless of whether the state as a whole is republican or democrat.
But Turley is complaining about States not doing enough to curb squatters–both FL and TX are RUN by Republicans–what are they doing about the issue? Speaking about not doing something about important issues, DeSantis just signed into law a bill making it illegal to hire undocumented workers. What is FL going to do with all of that produce currently picked and packed by undocumented people? It’ll have to rot.
“But Turley is complaining about States not doing enough to curb squatters”
The laws we are delaing with are enforced LOCALLY
And I can absolutely assure you – and Turley that the problems Turley notes – which are very real, ONLY occur in places with deep blue LOCAL governments – and not even most of those.
I am not interested in games trying to blame “red states” for the bad policies of deep blue cities.
If these places which to self destruct LET THEM.
Some people can learn from history.
Others must learn from failure.
“DeSantis just signed into law a bill making it illegal to hire undocumented workers.”
It is already a federal Crime. Biden just does not enforce it.
“What is FL going to do with all of that produce currently picked and packed by undocumented people?”
The same thing they did in 2019.
I do not know the specifics of FL agriculture – but one of my jobs was designing computer systems for argicultural automation.
‘
As we have increasingly allowed illegal immigrants into the country and at the same time made hiring them illegal.
Which is not at all new. Even Obama cracked down on people hiring illegals.
The agriculture industry has been rapidly automating.
This is also why we are seeing more and more illegals in construction jobs, or other service jobs that can not yet be replaced by machines.
It’ll have to rot.
Maybe you will have to pay more for your OJ.
FYI – The Texas case happened in Houston which is a deep blue city.
Cities don’t make laws–just ordinances. Laws are controlled by the State and in FL and TX, the state legislatures are controlled by Republicans.
Then you would have no problem with Republicans jailing squatters ?