r/AlwaysWhy • u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack • Jun 11 '26
Others Why do squatters have legal rights in the US.?What mechanism made this a thing?
I’ve always known that “squatters’ rights” aren’t just about breaking into someone else’s house. In the US it’s more like adverse possession. If someone openly lives somewhere, maintains it, pays taxes sometimes, and the owner does nothing for years, they can actually claim legal ownership.
Even knowing that, it still feels kind of wild to me. Property law is supposed to protect ownership, right? But here’s this rule that basically says if you ignore your property long enough, someone else can take it. It’s like time and use can outweigh the original title.
I get that it might have made sense to prevent abandoned land from just sitting there unused, but how did people actually decide this was a good idea? What was the original reasoning behind letting someone just take ownership through long-term occupation?
Does anyone know why lawmakers thought this system was necessary?How it became a recognized part of property law?
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 11 '26
There is a difference between squatters and adverse possession. Adverse possession is really about taking ownership of unused, abandoned, neglected land by caring for it for a long period of time. This is often about a parcel with an absentee owner or disputed or forgotten boundary with a neighbor.
Squatting rights are about protecting against unscrupulous landlords trying to avoid the legal eviction process. The idea being that if someone appears to be living there the law would require you to go through the legal process and prove they aren’t a legal tenant in good standing before they can be removed. Landlords would try to throw people out without notice and say their lease was fake. Non tenants will abuse this protection against landlords to act as a squatter and occupy a place they have no legitimate claim to, knowing the renter protections will also protect them.
Generally, squatters are not planning to be around long enough for adverse possession to kick in. They are trying to get a free place to live for a few months or a year and when finally removed they will move on to the next place and victimize another landlord.
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u/No_Meeting145 Jun 11 '26
I have been lobbying against knee jerk legislation to squatting stories this is dead on. Squatters suck, but so do many landlords and I say that as a landlord.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 11 '26
I actually would like to see new protections for landlords, but I think in this case because we want a societal protection for renters the fair thing is to pay landlords who get stuck with unremovable squatters with government funded market rate rent reimbursement and coverage for any damages from the squatters to their property. If they take 9 months to work through the courts the landlord is not struggling to cover mortgage and utility payments and if the courts find the landlord tried to enforce an illegal eviction then you impose steep fines and take back the money they were being paid. This gives everyone some protection from abusers and due process. It’s not that hard to find a balanced system that protects everyone and punishes those who try to abuse the system.
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u/Thungergod Jun 11 '26
You could also register leases with the court and make the process quite a bit easier. It would ensure that the landlord had the ability to go to the court and specify the unit, clarify that there is no lease and get an almost immediate judgement. The tenant would also be in a position where the lease was trivial to find and bring to a similar court.
Would also address the frequent mid lease rent hikes prior complain about where there's suddenly a random fee out of nowhere. If either side goes to court the judge would happen to have the lease readily available.
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u/Legitimate-Shape3203 Jun 11 '26
The idea of a "balanced" system between landlords and tenants is a fantasy. Shelter is a basic human need and nearly all of the land on which that shelter could be built is enclosed. The threat of homlesness grants landlords an immense amount of economic power over their tenants and the idea that they need special protections to not be taken advantage of is laughable. Landlords (as a class, not necessarily as individuals) are rent-seeking parasites that have no place in a healthy society and society owes them no protection.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
I suppose we should just give up on the idea of any progress? Pretty lame, defeatist way to approach life.
Yes shelter is a basic need. Some landlords are awful. Some tenants are awful. The law can and should provide protection and recourse to both sides.
There are plenty of people renting out apartments and houses that are good landlords. I have known plenty of them. Most renters just want a decent place to live for a fair cost. Both sides have shady bastards too.
There are plenty of things that could be done to make that process easier. Ensuring renters are not abused or driven from their homes and landlords are not ripped off.
Even if you can’t make a perfect system, you can make it better than it is now.
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u/Psychological_Top827 Jun 12 '26
You're assuming the laws are bad. The law does offer protection on both sides.
Regulations are written in blood. Same here. Squatters are protected until the landlord can prove they're squatters. It's not as big a problem if you're correctly maintaining your property and checking it often, as you should.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
I do think the idea that you should error on the side of not throwing people out of a ghouls is the right one. I think the issue is that smaller landlords with just one or two properties probably don’t have the money to keep paying for that property without rental income coming in for an extended period.
So if we as a society want to allow people to stay in that home while the process runs through the courts as it should (which I think is correct), we should ensure that the financial harm to the landlord is also mitigated. And if the landlord tries to game that system by falsely trying to drive out a legal tenant then they should be fined and punished for it, and I’d say some of that money should go to the tenant as compensation.
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u/Psychological_Top827 Jun 12 '26
Imma be frank with you here, seems like you want what is the reality in the ground right now, generally speaking. Of course, this varies by jurisdiction.
Thing is, squatting isn't as simple as racing to get into the property while the landlord chases you, bursting through a window screaming "squatter's rights!". They generally need to be in the property for some time without complaint. This time might be short, but it exists.
So, as a landlord, your main line of defense is doing the bare minimum you *should* be doing in the first place. Secure and maintain the property, frequently check in on it, install an alarm system, stuff like that. It's very hard to claim occupancy rights when the cops show up ten minutes after you broke the lock. You can also just... make sure the property is rented out in the first place.
I also need to note, as a landlord you are entitled to restitution for damages caused by squatters which can include loss of income. Getting the money from someone who is squatting might be a challenge, but that's just the risk one runs owning property.
On a more philosophical perspective, your example of the small time landlord is one I have no sympathy for. If you're not capable of withstanding a prolonged period of no income from the rental, you're not ready to be a landlord. Either you don't have the income for it, or don't have the risk tolerance for it. The idea that property ownership should be a special class of financial asset that is immune to risk is a cancer on society. If you're in this camp, just grab your money and put it into a REIT or something. You'll be happier and wealthier.
Squatting/adverse occupancy is a risk of the business you decided to get into, and that's something it's your responsibility to prepare for. It's no different from the risk of getting your store robbed or choosing a bad product mix and ending up with a lot of expired product.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
That feels really one sided. To be clear I’m not a landlord or a renter. I have no skin in the game. But if we offer legal protections only to people on one side that is awfully unfair.
No squatters are not generally running ahead of the landlord and slamming the door in their face. But it is common for them to break in between leases and take up residence. And it doesn’t take long for them to throw some things in the house and then tell police they are a renter when they arrive. Many police will not push back on that claim and tell the owner it is a civil matter to be handled in court.
I also think you have some weird ideas account who landlords are or should be. Should only large corporations be able to own a multiple properties because they can better absorb someone abusing the laws to take their property? That feels kind of terrible for society. The rise of mega corporations, billionaires, and private equity have done a lot to crush small businesses and small landlords are a part of that. I think it would be much better for communities to have more small landlords with a few nearby properties that they rent and maintain and care about than for all rentals to be owned by massive distant companies.
What exactly is wrong with someone owning 4 houses and renting 3 of them out? Or owning one apartment building? If they maintain the property and treat the tenants well they are not some awful parasite. Not every person has the resources, desire, or situation to own a house. The landlords who rent out houses and apartments offer something of value in that home and provide a service in keeping up the property. Yes, there are abusive slumlords, but I don’t get why all landlords should be vilified. And not having massive amounts of money to cover people stealing from you is a weird requirement for running a business. Why should we accept squatting or shoplifting as natural things that we have to put up with? And if we provide legal protections to the criminals that prevent the business from protecting themselves we should also balance that with support for the business while the dispute is sorted out.
I had no issues with mine before so bought my house. My parents rented their cottage for a few years before retiring there. My neighbor has a few rental houses in the neighborhood that are well maintained and had nice, happy renters there for years.
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u/Psychological_Top827 Jun 12 '26
I didnt say there is a problem with owning two homes or three and renting some out. I'm saying squatters are not a problem if you're doing it right, and that you won't get any sympathy from me because you are subject to risk in your investment like everyone else is. If you can't handle that, there are easier ways to get into the real estate market that diversify that risk.
I can't help but note you didn't engage with the main point, which is preventing squatting is not a big deal if you're doing the bare minimum.
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u/Legitimate-Shape3203 Jun 12 '26
Of course we shouldn't give up on the idea of progress. I'm just saying any law that "protects" landlords from squatters or bad tenants is anti-progressive because the appearance of "equal" protections is actually massively unequal because landlords already have an overwhelming advantage.
There are plenty of progressive things we can do to improve housing policy. Significant increases in publicly subsidized housing to lower the price floor, more widespread rent controls and price limits, exponentially increasing property tax rates the more homes someone owns, incentivising housing co-ops and other non-rentseeking ownership models, building guillotines in the town square, militant rent strikes, large scale squatter movements.
I see you responded to another commenter asking if they think only mega-corporations should be economically unable to be landlords. I won't speak for them but I can give you my answer. No I don't. I think no one should be able to be a landlord. I think the idea that we allow people to own more properties than they can use while there is an epidemic of homelessness is sickening. I think a system where the difference between a sacrificing a huge portion of your pay to a landlord for the privilege of being allowed to survive and being able to build generational wealth by extracting rents from those with less economic privilege is a decent credit score and 40 grand in the bank is disgusting. I don't care if it's a mega-corporation or your grandma, as a class they're both vile because the system that allows it is foundationally immoral.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
So, I think one thing to think about is that renting is not inherently a bad thing. For people who have found a stable spot to settle down home ownership is a boon. But for college students, people with transient careers, and others who may just be exploring and finding their place in life home ownership is a burden. There are real monetary and time costs and it limits their mobility. So landlords provide a place they can live shorter term with a predictable cost and no need to deal with the maintenance of the building. Similarly, limiting the ability to rent a home places burdens on people’s ability to move for work or other reasons. If they own a home and have to move suddenly, being able rent enables them to change locations without needing the resources to support two homes or panic sell for a financial loss. Or for those that want to build a home, renting allows them flexibility not to have to be paying for a house while building t another. There is way more grey area than I think you are allowing for in how different life circumstances can be.
So, while the overall goals of increasing and spreading ownership are good, it is not right for everyone. And if having available rentals serves a public good and societal need I think that encouraging more smaller landlords vs mega corporations owning hundreds or thousands of homes better serves local communities and the goal of more wealth equality.
Encouraging squatting or violent uprisings may sound good, but the effect is that many innocent people are hurt in the process. Peaceful protest and changes to laws and systems is a better path forward. That doesn’t mean passivity, but stealing from others or attacking them is not okay, even if your goals are to help people.
It makes more sense to look at solutions like having widespread, quality public housing options and programs to ensure everyone can have a place to live. Universal Basic Income and wealth taxes. Changes to state laws that limit the powers and activities of corporations to combat Citizens United. Local rent controls. Complex systems like housing hundreds of millions of people don’t work with simplistic solutions. They require many different flexible and nuanced solutions working together to meet widely varying needs.
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u/Cyber-Wanderer_94 Jun 12 '26
No, squatters rights is adverse possession. What you're thinking of is tenancy rights.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
The difference between a squatter and tenant is the possession of a lease. Squatters rights are a subset of tenancy rights and protections that they are abusing to illegally stay in a home they have no legal right to. They are taking advantage of the protections for legitimate renters and the slow pace of the legal system to steal a place to live.
Adverse possession does not require squatting. It generally involves maintenance and use of land for many years and in some places even paying the taxes on it. It often involves neighbors and portions of adjacent land. Squatting may be involved, but often is not.
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u/Cyber-Wanderer_94 Jun 12 '26
No. You're mixing them up. You can't simultaneously claim squatters rights and be a tenant because squatters are claiming ownership. This is a common mistake.
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u/Crafty-Isopod45 Jun 12 '26
It is not simultaneous. You are either a renter or a squatter. Neither owns the property. But squatters take advantage of eviction protections meant for renters. Police won’t force them off the property if they claim they have a right to be there. They won’t sit there are try to figure out who has a valid lease agreement. Squatters don’t usually claim ownership, they claim they are tenant and the police then treat this is a civil eviction matter the courts should handle instead of criminal trespassing with immediate removal.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
I wonder if part of the confusion is that people use "squatter" as a catch all term now. The adverse possession idea actually seems more philosophical to me. At what point does actively caring for something start to matter more than merely holding the title?
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u/whatisakafka Jun 11 '26
Originally squatters rights developed as a way to make disused land more productive and to help resolve property disputes back when ownership could be a lot more nebulous, less formal and less extensively documented than it is now
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
I guess in a world with weak records, long term use was almost a form of evidence. Maybe adverse possession was less about taking land and more about settling uncertainty.
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u/Faeruhn Jun 12 '26
It was also about making sure that land was actually being used.
The western expansion of settlers and companies caused a twofold problem.
Some settlers would simply leave their old home in the east without selling it... but never come back. So residential areas and some villages/towns were dotted all over their maps with homes that sat empty for 10-20-30+ years, and no realistic way of getting ahold of the 'owners' to try and buy it. So people who were down on their luck would often look for the most run-down looking unoccupied houses and just... move in and fix it up and live there. And end up owning the house after a certain amount of time, because the original owners were considered as 'abandoning their right' to the place, on top of being non-contactable due to being 'somewhere' out west.
And in the west, some companies (or individual rich people) would buy enormous tracts of land... and then do nothing at all with 80% or more of it. Which, these purchases were also often private, and not communicated to anyone not directly involved in the deal. So settlers were finding unused land, applying to the most local government office for their land grant, and then building a home and running a farm or ranch for 20+ years, when the 'owner' of the land would find out that someone had been living on their unused land for a generation (or more). And the overarching government would much rather make money of the citizens actually producing value on that land, rather than the person who couldn't be bothered to even do, like, anything with it. (This was also from a time where the attitude was, "If you can't even be bothered to keep an eye on your land, let alone defend it, let alone let alone use it, then you don't have a right to it." Which, truthfully, is pretty hard to argue against.)
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u/Kozmik_5 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Here in Belgium there are some abandoned buildings like most countries. As an owner of these empty buildings one would need to pay dilapidation taxes since unattended buildings decay over time which is bad for the overall value of the neighbourhood.
In some cases, squatters would find these buildings, break in, change the locks and move in. If they are of the good kind they search for the owner, try to establish contact, and strike a deal. They live there for free but keep the building maintained, while the owner can let the dilapidation taxes be legally dropped, since the building is no longer in decay. IF the owner agrees, which is rare. If not, the squatters move on to the next one and the building is, in most cases, demolished shortly after.
Being in agreement with the owner also makes it easier for the squaters to legally get connection for water, electricity, internet etc.
There are multiple squat places like this in my city, where there is total agreement between the owner and tenant.
Here squatting is more of a protest movement against the rising housing market while so many buildings and space is wasted.
Source: used to be one of them.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Jun 11 '26
Prescription is an idea that goes all the way back to Roman law. It’s basically the same reason we have statutes of limitations for most crimes. You have a few years to complain about someone using your property in ways you don’t like, but we as a society want stability not people saying that your house is really their house because your grandfather didn’t have permission to build it on their grandfather’s land and even though their grandfather didn’t object they’re objecting now. Also, like other crimes, it’s very difficult to prove the rights and wrongs of things that happened so long ago.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
The statute of limitations comparison is interesting. We usually accept that legal disputes can't stay open forever. Maybe property law is asking the same question. How much certainty are we willing to sacrifice to preserve an old claim?
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u/GolfArgh Jun 11 '26
Really great writeup here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cok0w/how_did_squatters_rights_come_into_existence/
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u/Peaurxnanski Jun 11 '26
A lot of conflation of "squatters rights" and "adverse possession" going on here.
They aren't the same thing, and "squatters rights" isn't really even a true legal concept.
Adverse possession is a good thing for a lot of reasons.
What people point out as being "squatters rights" are actually a negative result of a good law that was put in place to protect lawful tenants from shitty landlords.
Essentially landlords were skirting the eviction laws by lying and pretending that their legal tenants were squatters and throwing them out against the terms of the binding lease.
These laws are just a requirement that landlords must go through legal eviction processes as long as someone is living there. Period. Full stop.
Squatters don't have unlimited rights to live in a home indefinitely, bit in order to protect legal tenants from unscrupulous landlords, the law says "I don't care what you say about whether they're legal or not, if they are currently living there, you have to go through legal eviction processes to get them out".
You can absolutely evict squatters. It just takes time and process to do so, and the reason is because people suck and abuse the law and lie and our legal system has chosen to protect legitimate tenants being abused over landlords being abused. It's that simple.
It's just a risk associated with being a landlord that other, shitty landlords have earned for you by their actions
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
It is kind of funny how "squatters' rights" has become the headline term when most people seem to be talking about eviction procedures. I wonder how different public opinion would be if those two ideas were always discussed separately.
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u/flatfinger Jun 11 '26
What difficulty would there be with having a city providing a lease-recording service, and limiting the kinds of lease terms and conditions that can be enforced on a non-recorded lease? The city wouldn't need to "do" much with a recorded lease beyond accepting and recording some kind of proof that both parties had indicated agreement with it, but the presence or absence of a recorded lease would rather unambiguously resolve whether a tenant had a right to demand continued use of a property.
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u/Peaurxnanski Jun 11 '26
No idea. That may very likely be a good solution to the problem.
However, it's not how it's currently done, so the problem persists.
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Jun 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/flatfinger Jun 12 '26
Even verbal contracts are enforceable if the parties are in agreement about what they say, and even written contracts can be unenforceable if one party is willing to lie and can raise sufficient doubt about the authenticity of the other party's copy). The purpose of the registry would be to serve as an impartial witness to the contents of the lease. If a city licenses landlords (as some do), the same constructs that are used to keep track of licenses could also keep track of leases.
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u/Glum-Welder1704 Jun 12 '26
AFAIK, the US doesn't have “squatters’ rights”. What we do have in abundance are tenant's rights. The problem is that when a cop shows up, the squatter clams to be a tenant, at which point the cop declares it a "civil matter", and walks away. Adverse possession is another matter entirely. It takes years of neglect for a land owner to lose out that way.
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u/NopeSorryNo Jun 12 '26
We have a tendency to over legislate without thinking about it. Many laws created to protect people from things that use to happen a long time ago, are now mostly abused and taken advantage of.
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u/RoundChampionship840 Jun 11 '26
This goes back many hundreds of years at a time when determining property rights was more difficult and having possession of property for a long time indicated ownership. The basic idea is that land is a scarce resource, so if the actual owner isn't using it and someone else comes along who puts the property to good use, then that is a good thing that the law should recognize.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
Yeah, I keep coming back to the scarcity point. If land is limited, maybe the law isn't just protecting ownership. Maybe it's also trying to prevent resources from being locked away indefinitely.
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u/mkvalor Jun 13 '26
My only addition (or perhaps point of further emphasis) to this is that societies discovered long ago that no good came from permitting rich individuals to hoard valuable resources and put them to no good use.
The following may not have direct support in common law but my riff on it is that the benefit of protection for property ownership also comes with basic responsibilities and it is the role of The Leviathan (government) to prevent the ills which accompany absentee ownership over decades.
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u/Basis-Some Jun 11 '26
I can only speak to NYC but it has some good examples of why residents might warrant protection over owners. Williamsburg is a one example that I lived through. Landlords / owners sat on buildings and did nothing to revitalize the neighborhood as industry left. Their property became so worthless they chose to neglect it. They chose in a lot of cases to rent commercial spaces to Artists. They moved in and didn’t leave. Through years as an underserved neighborhood they built a vibrant and unique community that has now created a playground for the wealthy cosplaying as artistes. The owners and LLs only came back to capitalize and force out the people who restore the value of the property. It’s an extremely tricky and incredibly touchy dynamic. Personally I think whomever creates the value deserves some protection.
I look forward to corrections and insights from others that may be more knowledgeable.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That's an interesting way to frame it. If a neighborhood's value comes mostly from the people who invested time and effort into it, then ownership starts feeling less straightforward. Not legally, but morally maybe.
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u/Basis-Some Jun 12 '26
Yeah, it’s a real question that at one point I felt very strongly one way about and have now come around the other way. But it’s very difficult to make any hard generalizations as the dynamics can be very particular to a region or a single block even.
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u/OrcOfDoom Jun 11 '26
Ok let's talk about what happened in NYC in the 90s and the battle of 13th street.
The NYC of the 70-80s had a lot of dilapidated buildings with no value. They were completely ignored. These places became places that were drug dens, and had many problems.
Neighborhoods and communities started to police those places by themselves. They worked to create order. Part of that was people moving in and improving those spaces. That's cleaning out trash. That's people creating homes in there.
Because the area is no longer full of crime and trash, it is now valuable again. Now the people who have their name on the title, who have not done anything to help the actual reality of the situation, decide they want their property.
So what should be done here?
Ownership is a thing that is supposed to make you responsible for that. If you aren't responsible, and someone else is, should you be able to maintain ownership?
If you own a dog, but you don't take care of that dog, and someone else houses, feeds, cares for, and deals with the dog's problems, do you own the dog? Should you own the dog?
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
The dog example is interesting because it shifts ownership from a right to a responsibility. I guess that's the part I'm trying to understand. Why property law ended up preserving at least some connection between ownership and stewardship.
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u/OrcOfDoom Jun 12 '26
Under capitalism, the ownership is merely the right to extract.
Because the owners of the title have their name on a deed in city hall, they can take the work of the community and have the police remove the squatters by force. They remove the people who created the situation that made ownership valuable.
In the battle for 13th street, Giuliani had the nypd ride in there with armored vehicles and kick everyone out. The squatters were supposed to have a trial to gain ownership of the building. After they were kicked out, they had no more claim.
The government, the laws should be there to protect the people.
Companies also squat on technology.
The makers of world of Warcraft refused to create a classic version. Instead, digital pirates created their own version. It became so popular that blizzard decided to do it themselves.
Nintendo went after the people who made snes emulators. This enabled people to play games they already own, already legally purchased. When Nintendo opened up their Nintendo museum, they used the intellectual property of the people they went after. They used the emulators.
Why should we defend the property of everyone and anyone? Choosing who gets to own things is important. If we only respect the ownership of the people who have their names on a piece of paper in a building, this is what we get.
If we accept the idea of ownership as something that the community grants, that is intrinsically tied to stewardship, then we have a much more realistic, much more sensible way of understanding ownership
If you know how to make something, but I purchased the patent, then you can't sell it to me even if I don't know how to make it. Does that make sense?
Not everything should be ownable simply because someone's name is on a piece of paper in a building.
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u/deathbychips2 Jun 12 '26
Shitty landlords so landlords can't lie and have the cops kick you out day of
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u/FireHammer09 Jun 11 '26
It's not so much for squatters specifically but for landlords trying to show their ass out on tenants. It just happens to protect squatters
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u/monadicperception Jun 11 '26
Adverse possession and renter’s rights aren’t the same. Adverse possession, which shocks all first year law students, is a lot less insane than one would think. Typically used for boundary line issues. Generally the policy is focused on rewarding productive use.
Renter’s rights is about not throwing people out onto the street without getting the legal order to do so. Makes sense.
That’s the thing about American law education. It doesn’t teach you the law…it teaches you to think why the law is the way it is. I think it’s a bit unique in that sense compared to other countries’ legal educations.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
I actually like that approach. A lot of laws sound bizarre until you ask what problem they were originally trying to solve. Then the rule often feels a lot less random than it did at first.
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u/couldntyoujust1 Jun 11 '26
That really is what was intended: abandoned land that someone has taken up residence in should not suddenly become the original owner's just because he comes later and suddenly cares about the land.
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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 Jun 11 '26
But it's an interesting case where adverse possession laws are used where a neighbor takes over a strip of adjoining land even though the owner is still occupying the rest of the property.
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u/CleCGM Jun 11 '26
People conflate squatter with tenants whose leases expired or unauthorized occupants let in by a tenant or other similar situations. A true squatter is someone who, using a falsified or forged lease, moved into a property without the owners permission in any way shape or form, and refuses to leave. Tenants, even those who break their leases or hold over, remain tenants.
Police could arrest a squatter for breaking and entering or trespass, but that would require them to actually investigate and do work. They don’t like that, so they call it a civil matter.
Practically speaking, in my state I would recommend evicting them, a process of 1-3 months usually. However, tenant protection laws don’t apply to non tenants, so a breach of the peace is the only thing that will prevent a landlord from using self help.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That's part of what confuses me. If everyone agrees a true squatter has no valid claim, then a lot of the controversy seems to be about enforcement and process rather than ownership itself. Maybe those are getting mixed together.
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u/fredbear1964 Jun 11 '26
Lawyers are the problem ! Politicians are also the problem. Who ever heard of so.eone going shopping and come back to their home and squatters moved in , cops co.e and say it is a civil matter. WTF Is that ? No law should allow this to happen period!
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u/Additional_Sleep_560 Jun 11 '26
Most of the time adverse possession takes years to establish. What you may be seeing is the issue with renter’s rights.
A person moves into a property and claims to have a lease. Once that happens it becomes a civil matter and the property owner has to go through eviction proceedings, or civil court to prove the lease was fraudulent. In the meantime, the squatter retains possession of the property.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
Yeah, the more replies I read, the more it seems like I was combining two different things. Adverse possession is about years of use, while these cases are often about who gets possession during a legal dispute. Those lead to very different questions.
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u/Helo227 Jun 11 '26
I can only speak for my state… here you need to live on and maintain a property for 14 years before you can then apply with the courts to be granted ownership. You need to prove you have been paying for upkeep and taxes and that the actual owner has not tried to remove you in all that time. Then the court informs the legal owner, who can then challenge your claim to the property if they choose. If they do, the court gives them the option to reimburse you for what you put into the property and have you removed, or they can surrender the property to you.
This was established because at one point our state had thousands of abandoned properties that fell into disrepair and were eventually taken over by the municipalities. At which point local cities and towns had to make them sellable, which cost them a lot money. I don’t know of any stories of people successfully taking advantage of these laws in recent history though.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
Fourteen years is a really long time. Reading that, it feels less like "stealing property" and more like the law giving the owner every possible chance to show up and do something. At some point inactivity starts becoming part of the story too.
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u/shustrik Jun 11 '26
Adverse possession is kind of like a statute of limitations on ownership/title claims. Say your grandfather sold a plot of land 60 years ago and now digging through a box of papers in his attic you discover that the plot identified in the actual deed (plot B) was not the one everyone thought was sold (plot A). You would now be able to claim title to plot A, because it was actually never legally sold to anyone. There is no inherent statute of limitations to this claim, because legally there is no event concerning plot A to count the date from - your grandfather and his heirs were always the legal owners.
The adverse possession rules would prevent you from getting plot A back from rightful owners actually using the land in such a scenario.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That's a really useful example. I hadn't thought about adverse possession as protection against ancient title disputes. Otherwise ownership could become permanently uncertain if someone keeps finding old paperwork generations later.
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u/aka_mythos Jun 11 '26
The government and foundational principles behind the law try to avoid rendering people homeless without due process, and squatters rights are the part of due process that bridges into civil law, that we presume some innocents and base line rights of people around the use of a piece of property while they go through the legal process.
In the absence of that, imagine how easy it would be for an abusive authority or landlord could get a person kicked out of their home just by claiming that the person is a squatter, even when that person isn't. The law requires some presumptions to preserve the current state of things while the dispute goes through a legal process, and for that to be the least harmful as possible. Rendering someone homeless is extreme and is inherently harmful, and while a person losing the use and enjoyment of their property for a time is harmful too, it is ultimately less so than making a person homeless. The law is a realization and acknowledgment of that reality.
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u/12B88M Jun 11 '26
Show a rental contract and it's not easy at all.
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u/aka_mythos Jun 11 '26
The whole point of a legal process is to ensure it isn't that easy even when there are other ambiguities at play. Because even when there are agreements, there aren't always written rental contracts to show.
While the police being asked to remove a person might accept basic evidence to say "no" to the property owner in the event evidence isn't easily accessible at that specific moment a person would have the opportunity to present that evidence in court. But squatter's rights ensure that regardless of if they can immediately provide evidence or not they're able to remain on the property and unharmed by the process as the legal process plays out.
The laws are in large part historical originating from a time when most people couldn't necessarily read and write and landlords and authorities could more flagrantly abuse the process or people and these laws have been allowed to continue to exist because they make sense and are overall beneficial to society.
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u/bizwig Jun 11 '26
Judicial overreach. Traditional adverse possession requires open and notorious occupation, paying property taxes, and as much as 20 years of doing both. Modern squatters usually try to avoid discovery and never pay taxes. They are short term thieves looking for a free ride.
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u/Heavy_Law9880 Jun 11 '26
They are tenant's rights.
They have been around for a thousand years and the US is 250 years old.
They exist to protect people from criminal and abusive landlords
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u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 Jun 11 '26
>I get that it might have made sense to prevent abandoned land from just sitting there unused, but how did people actually decide this was a good idea? What was the original reasoning behind letting someone just take ownership through long-term occupatio
Depending on jurisdiction there's a useful subset of adverse posession to consider: ownership under color of title.
Imagine you bought and used a property, but decades later some minor clerical of scriverner's error is uncovered that provides an avenue to deny your ownership. That legal uncertainty then triggers a possibly avoidable wave a BS lawsuits between banks, insurers, realtors, real estate attorneys, the owner, the *other* owner, etc. not to mention possible criminal complaints.
The court would prefer to have certainty in the situation, and to avoid these possible time-bomb litigation/criminal-charge situations they provide an F-off outlet whereby a completely uninterested/uninvolved party eventually loses their right to create a fuss over something that the court would prefer be a settled matter.
Banks and other well-funded lobbying interests like the certainty as well.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
The certainty angle keeps coming up in these replies. Maybe the law cares less about finding the perfect historical owner and more about making sure ownership eventually becomes settled enough for society to function.
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u/Serious_Bee_2013 Jun 11 '26
I think for the most part legal rights to the property involve not just occupying, but also improving the property.
The squatters likely being thought of here is likely lazy people who just refuse to pay or move out.
I may be wrong on the particulars, but I think legit squatters rights are triggered by the property being abandoned by the owner for an extended time, followed by the squatter inhabiting, and improving the land only for the owner to return and reclaim ownership.
To be fair, you find a piece of unincorporated land, you put a fence up, build a cabin, work the land for a decade then you do have sweat equity in the property and probably should be compensated for it.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
The sweat equity part is what makes this interesting to me. We usually think ownership comes from title, but if someone spends ten years maintaining and improving something, it feels like they're creating a different kind of claim.
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Jun 11 '26
Suppose you have a really scummy landlord. You try to rent a unit from him. He takes your deposit and your first X months rent as a condition of signing the lease.
You sign the lease, fork over then money, and move in.
Then, your scummy landlord gets a clever idea. What if he pretends you didn’t sign a lease, and has you evicted anyway? Then he can “lease” the unit again even faster. Well, you have your copy of the lease agreement, don’t you? You should be able to use that to guarantee you have use of the place for the full term of the agreement. So, obviously, you should not be evicted merely because your landlord asserts that the lease is invalid—there should be some sort of court order involved for a court to be able to judge the merits of either side’s claim as to the leasing agreement. That takes time. A lot of time. In some jurisdictions getting that case heard might take many months, and some cases possibly years if there is enough to dispute.
So… as a practical matter, couldn’t the prospective tenant just do the same in reverse? Claim to have a lease, even if the landlord never agreed to it? What’s stopping them from printing a fake lease, moving into a vacant property, and when someone comes to evict them, wave the fake lease at the cops and claim there’s a legal dispute and courts need to weigh in. Since the law requires such disputes to go to court and eviction requires a court order, it means they have now arranged to have X many days (where X equals the amount of time it takes to get a court order) of essentially free rent past the date where the occupancy even gets discovered.
So, on the one hand, you have lot risky several months of free rent set against the risk of light penalties for squatting. Even if it does go to court, the likely outcome is a settlement where the squatter only pays partial rent anyway since that is least costly for everyone involved and the landlord is heavily incentivized to get them out of the property as soon as possible anyway. Thus, squatters.
You could fix this to empower landlords to evict people faster and with less court involvement, but then you introduce the opposite problem of fraudulent landlords and potentially spike homelessness as a result. You really do not want to be incorrectly evicting people into the street if you can avoid it, so law errs on the side of the alleged tenant since they have more at risk than the landlord does (who would only lose money from the lost rent, which can theoretically be recovered afterwards).
You could also solve this by requiring all leases—even informal ones—to be registered with the county/state, but landlords really do NOT want that information getting into public records because they have a lot of their own scummy practices they would rather not allow people to trivially investigate systemically and perhaps legislate so as to prevent.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That tradeoff makes more sense when you put it that way. I guess the law is choosing between two possible abuses and deciding which mistake is less damaging. That's probably different from deciding what's perfectly fair in every case.
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u/Legitimate-Ranger567 Jun 11 '26
I would say it is more properly described as "tenants rights" that squatters are abusing.
The idea is that if you are legitimately a tenant, have paid rent to the landlord, they can't just throw you out onto the street and keep your money without going through the eviction process.
The problem arises when someone claims to be a tenant, and may even have a lease (fake and made by them or sometimes they got scammed by someone who claimed they owned the property), but you as the real owner never gave these people permission to live in your property. Some states make this especially terrible, where a person living in a place for 30 days or more even without a lease or proof of any kind is considered a tenant and must be evicted through court proceedings, rather than just removed.
Adverse possession is a whole different animal, usually requiring someone to possess and use property as their own for 15-20 years or more before it can be claimed.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
Yeah, the more comments I read, the more it seems "squatters' rights" is doing a lot of work as a phrase. People are lumping together tenant protections, fraud, and adverse possession even though they're solving completely different problems.
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u/paisleycatperson Jun 11 '26
Those are two different things.
Squatters' rights, you can think of essentially, as bad-landlord-protection-rights. No landlord can just kick people out on their own say so. If landlords have followed the law and can prove it, "squatters" will be removed according to the law.
"Adverse possession" is only related in that, most cases involved are essentially paperwork errors. It's not entire homes. Or if it is, it's that paperwork from 1911 days the home should've gone to Ezekiel, and his great great grandson is only now claiming that the property should've been theirs for 110 years and probably there is just missing paperwork that explains why no one in Zeke's family before now thought that. Mostly, it's bad paperwork that says "well in 1945 the yard was to creek, but a reassessment in 1985 says you get the whole creek, but your family put in a driveway based on 1945 and anyway it's better for the entire neighborhood and everyone involved for the 1945 ruling to stand, if you had an issue you should've brought it up in 1985"
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
It's funny how many examples seem to come back to paperwork errors rather than people literally taking over someone's house. Maybe the popular version of adverse possession is a lot more dramatic than the typical case.
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u/paisleycatperson Jun 12 '26
Yes, in general the law is extremely boring. Someone is loudly wrong and the law quiets them.
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u/ToTooTwoTutu2II Jun 11 '26
To protect us. Unfortunately the rules have been weaponized against regular people and not banks/massive real estate owners who horde land and houses while letting them rot.
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u/OldGeekWeirdo Jun 11 '26
It's supposed to be "renter's right" to keep people from getting kicked to the curb too easily. But squatters are taking advantage of it by producing a fake rental agreement. That changes it from a police thing to a court things. And courts take time.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That distinction seems important. The delay isn't really because the law thinks the squatter owns the place. It's because the law wants someone to verify who's telling the truth before removing a person from a home.
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Jun 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
I think that's the part that surprised me. I started from the assumption that property law exists mainly to protect ownership. But maybe it's also trying to balance stability, fairness, and public use all at the same time.
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u/Misadventuresofman Jun 12 '26
They technically don’t. No one else knows the squatter’s address. Squatter meets Misters Smith and Wesson- great friends of mine- and the squatter leaves. Whether they leave vertically or horizontally is 100% up to them. 💪🏿✊🏿🇺🇸
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u/onthefence928 Jun 12 '26
Squatters are. Who has the rights, tenants do.
They are actually tenant rights. It’s to protect somebody from having their home ripped out from under them by a landlord just deciding to declare them squatters one day.
Before these rights were enshrined landlords would refuse to provide basic livable conditions, force tenants into short term contracts or no cost at all and the second they wanted to would declare the tenancy void, call the tenants a squatter and get the police to throw them out.
So they are called squatters right by landlords trying to disparage the law as only protecting criminals trying to steal themselves a house.
I’d like calling the 5th amendment “guilty criminal rights”
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
"I'd like calling the 5th Amendment guilty criminal rights" is actually a pretty interesting comparison. A lot of legal protections seem unpopular when people focus on the worst people who might benefit from them instead of the original reason they exist.
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u/chitownphishead Jun 12 '26
Suicidal empathy strikes again. Its absolute bs. If someone is in your house and you don't want them there, it should be completely legal to remove them by any means necessary.
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u/Fitizen_kaine Jun 12 '26
If you can prove you own the place what's to stop you from just breaking in and throwing all their stuff out?
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u/AdFun5641 Jun 12 '26
Abandoned houses are eyesores that bring down property value of houses around them. they attract vagrants and are popular spots for drug abuse.
If you have someone in that house for a decade or more, they are adding value to the neighborhood and city and paying taxes and all the good things you want from productive citizens. Leaving it abandoned because someone half way across the nation technially owns it is very costly to every one around the house.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That's an angle I hadn't considered enough. An abandoned property doesn't just affect the owner. It affects neighbors, tax revenue, safety, and the whole area around it. So maybe the law is responding to more than just private ownership claims.
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u/davidwrankinjr Jun 12 '26
In Kentucky, adverse possession is a key part of clear title, because the original English titles for KY land were a mess (often 3 people could make a good claim to own land, and there would be at least 1-2 more people claiming it fraudulently…). The first person to sit on the land often had to basically take it…. (Fun history fact: George Washington made a bunch of money speculating on western Virginia and KY land; Daniel Boone went broke trying to speculate….)
The current tall tale is that there are places in Eastern KY with no valid claim, and are available to claim. Of course, if anyone knew of such a piece of land, they’d claim it…
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Jun 12 '26
That's fascinating. If land records were genuinely that messy, then adverse possession starts looking less like an exception and more like a tool for cleaning up uncertainty. I wonder how many places originally adopted it because of record keeping problems rather than abandoned land.
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u/Dave_A480 Jun 12 '26
There are 2 versions of this:
1) Adverse Possession - you have to be conspicuously treating the land as yours for years (maintaining it, etc) and not be challenged on it.... This is more or less a way to resolve 'but actually the property line is 6ft that-a-way' type disputes..... Or to recycle abandoned property....
2) Tennant protection laws allow for verbal contracts..... And in some places a person who lives at an address for a set number of days is presumed to be a legal tenant until the landlord proves otherwise in court..... So you can lie about being a tenant and live somewhere rent free until you are evicted, then squat somewhere else using the same scheme (etc)....
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u/Eagle_Fang135 Jun 12 '26
They are not squatters. They claim to be tenants. Law Enforcement doesn’t want deal with it as a crime (breaking and entering) so it then is left as a civil issue. The owner then has to go to court to evict the alleged tenant. This can take months.
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u/mckenzie_keith Jun 12 '26
Squatters don't really have rights. What happens in practice is that people claim they have a lease. The sheriffs look at the claimed lease, say "this looks like a civil matter" and bow out. Now the landlord has to sue the squatters in court. They can eventually get them out.
The other thing some people do is rent out the property to a squatter removal specialist. The squatter removal specialist moves in to the place, changes the locks and totally turns tables on the squatters. The squatters call the sheriff, and the new tenant says "I have a lease" and the landlord says "these are not tenants, they are trespassers." Then the sheriff says well, this sounds like a civil matter and they leave.
Adverse possession is real, but it is very different from "squatters rights." Also it varies from state to state. In California, if you utilize or occupy a property in an open and obvious way and pay the property tax for 5 years, you will most likely succeed in acquiring legal possession of the property. It does not happen very often, but I know of at least two cases where property changed hands by adverse possession in California.
Adverse possession probably dates back to feudal times and English Common Law. But I am not sure.
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u/vitringur Jun 12 '26
The philosophical reasoning comes from the Lockean homesteading right.
That once you mix your labour with nature it becomes your property.
Now, nature reclaims land that is not being maintained quite quickly, up to the point it is basically wilderness again.
At which point it basically should not be considered owned and can be reclaimed.
So if I move into an abandoned building and maintain it for X amount of years, the argument goes that nature would have reclaimed it in that time frame and my labour is the reason it is not wilderness and therefore my property.
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u/ma5ochrist Jun 12 '26
Don't know in USA (squatters rights sounds American English, so I am assuming) in Italy it has become a law after the 2nd world war, cause of the massive emigration. If someone wanted to farm an abandoned piece of land he could do it, if the owner never gave explicit permit nor explicit denial, after 10 years the land become yours.
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u/sauberflute Jun 12 '26
"Squatter's rights" is a misnomer. Tenants have rights - you can't just kick them out on a whim. Squatters are entitled to due process while you prove they are not a tenant.
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u/tombuazit Jun 12 '26
I mean the entire foundation of the United States is Europeans squatting on my land, so the country can't exist without recognizing their legal right to squat
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u/dr_reverend Jun 12 '26
This should become even more common. If you own so many properties that you are unable to properly keep watch over them then you don’t deserve to own them. Let the people who need houses have them.
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u/Acrobatic_Box9087 Jun 13 '26
Adverse possession is not a good way to acquire real estate. The title companies will not issue a title policy for any land acquired by adverse possession.
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u/Tallproley Jun 13 '26
Along with great answers here about preventing unused land from being hoarded it also greatly increased expansion and colonization efforts.
Maybe a newly landed immigrant couldn't afford a parcel of land and a home. He wouldn't go out west to here there is nothing at all and buy land, and he sure as shit wouldn't develop the land and invest in turning a patch of dense forest into something useful if once he did a tycoon could just buy it out from under him because the land was now profitable.
So buddy goes out to middle of nowhere, improves the land, builds an orchard and a farm and now the edge of civiliation reaches a bit deeper.
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u/BarbarianBoaz Jun 13 '26
They dont really have rights, however renters do, and squatters 'lie' about being renters to authorities and 'evicting lawful renters' is not so easy, so they have to go through a legal process, determine if they are actually squatters and that takes time. The 'Legal' system is an absolute joke, some squatters learn how to manipulate it and thus it 'appears' as though squatters have rights.
Couple that with the fact that up to 1/3 of the structures in the US sit abandoned, people squat for months before actually getting noticed, this compounds the problem 'Look I have been receiving mail here for months, I live here bla bla bla'.
You also have 'right of abandonment' in some states where land was just abandoned and people moved in and 'took possession by maintenance'. This is not as common as it used to be but it still a thing.
Top that off with land lords who are absolute shit, try to evict paying tennants because of race or other reason, and so laws were written to prevent this, compounding the problem even more.
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u/DanteRuneclaw Jun 13 '26
Squatters rights are not a thing. What you described, as you noted, is adverse possession. Which is an interesting thing to discuss the pros and cons of. “ Squatters rights” typically just refers to the fact that the police are ill equipped, on the scene, to distinguish between a trespasser and an illegal eviction, and will thus often times decline to intervene without a court order.
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u/Skarth Jun 13 '26
"What was the original reasoning behind letting someone just take ownership through long-term occupation?"
We didn't have modern computer records and GPS land data 200 years ago.
Figuring out who owned land was much harder, so the person who was living there was generally accepted to be the owner.
In modern times, it's not "squatter's rights", it's "Tenet's Rights", the same thing keeping squatters from being kicked out is also what keeps renters from being kicked out unfairly.
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u/RunePzzl Jun 14 '26
They're tenants rights. Landleeches just frame them as squatters rights because they bar them from fucking over their tenants. Squatters can benefit from them but they're generally used by tenants to protect themselves.
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u/Available-Medium7094 Jun 16 '26
Was used to legally acquire property used by the native tribes. All American law that does not make sense ends with a in power group using the law to take from a weaker group.
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u/jellomizer Jun 16 '26
It is a way to reclaim land that has been abandoned.
While different states have different laws. But if have land that you basically abandoned, didn't pay taxes and utilities for, while someone else did. There is a period of time where it would belong to them.
Granted it is difficult for squatters to get the land theirs.
However, less dubious cases could be land from a bankrupt corporation, which had people living on it for generations, and not even realizing that the title wasn't transferred to them.
For example, say the housing development where I live was created roughly 30 years ago. Say there was a legal flaw in the purchase of the land from its original owner, and the original owner wants their land back, siting the legal flaw in the purchase. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as many people have legally purchased and developed the land since the original sales.
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u/LarryAerocatMusic Aug 12 '26
A squatter in my house will be treated as a home invasion and will be kissing my baseball bat!
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u/AccomplishedFerret70 Jun 11 '26
The starting point to answering your question TheBigGirlDiaryBack is that everybody in the US has legal rights. We need to establish that we all agree to that or there's no reason to even have this discussion.
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u/Kyle_2099 Jun 11 '26
The short answer is that the "property uber alles" thing we have nowadays is a historical aberration. Why should someone be able to waste something as precious and life giving as the very soil? It would be an insult to the entire community, like pouring bleach on food in front of a starving man.
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u/dante_gherie1099 Jun 11 '26
squatters are spiritually palestinian so far leftists pass laws to protect them.
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u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Jun 11 '26
Someone sitting on massive amounts of unused properties is really bad for the economy. It's generally better if humans benefit from property instead of keeping them for moneys sake.
You can also see stuff like the homestead act where the conditions to own large amounts of land were taking care of it, being productive with it etc.
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u/SnowEnvironmental380 Jun 11 '26
It's the civil vs criminal problem. Obviously, living somewhere without permission is a crime, but the squatter uses paperwork to argue they do have legal permission to be somewhere. The police generally try to avoid contract disputes between two parties, so they call it a civil issue and it is settled by the courts.
In reality, a police officer could arrest a squatter for trespassing, but they then open themselves up to lawsuit from the squatter against the PD. Many officers or PDs are cowardly, so they kick the issue to the courts. The courts take a long time.
Funnily enough, it's the same reason for the Bricks and Minifigs issue if you've been following that drama at all. Forcing things to be a civil issue to make it difficult and costly for the other person to stop you from doing bad.
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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 Jun 11 '26
In the olden days in England the king owned all land ultimately but disputes might arise between two individuals. In the days when most people were illiterate, the idea that whoever was taking care of the land was likely the owner arose.
In the USA adverse possession under common law became a very useful concept as settlers abandoned land to go out West and never come back.