216: Squatters’ Rights: What Lawyers Want Landlords to Know in 2024 w/Denise Medina and Patrick MacQueen

On The Market

BiggerPockets

News, Investing, Business, Education

4.8 • 820 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Squatters' rights have been a serious subject of debate over the past few years. It seems that more and more investors and even one-off landlords are dealing with squatters staying in their homes, whether they’ve had a lease in the past or not. This puts landlords in a strange predicament: try to get squatters out the legal way or offer unconventional incentives to entice the squatters to leave on their own accord. But how can a landlord prevent squatters from getting inside in the first place? Denise Medina and Patrick MacQueen, attorneys based in Detroit and Phoenix, are here to share exactly what a landlord must know about squatters’ rights and how to get a squatter out of your property legally. With new squatter laws taking effect in states like Florida, it seems that landlords and local governments have had enough. However, squatters’ rights remain strong in many other areas, such as James Dainard’s own Seattle, Washington. So what can landlords from either coast do to get squatters out? We’ll break down where squatters’ rights even came from, how landlords can get the legal upper hand and get a squatter OUT of their property, the exact steps a landlord should take, the prevention methods to stop squatting in the first place, and how James deals with squatters frequently without ever having to go to court! In This Episode We Cover Squatters’ rights explained, and the ancient laws that they’re based on Why state governments are getting tired of squatters and tightening up their laws What qualifies someone as a “squatter,” and why it’s MUCH broader than you think Evictions 101 and the steps every landlord should take to get a squatter out “Cash for keys” and maneuvering around the courts to remove squatters Trespassing vs. squatting and why the police CANNOT simply come and take a squatter away And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Agent BiggerPockets Bootcamps Join BiggerPockets for FREE On The Market Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Connect with Other Investors in the “On The Market” Forums Subscribe to The “On The Market” YouTube Channel Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Dave's Instagram James' BiggerPockets Profile James' Instagram Property Manager Finder: biggerpockets.com/findapm Learn to Be a Landlord with the BiggerPockets Bootcamps Real Estate Rookie Podcast 360 - Trespassers Took Over My Property! (How to Get Rid of Squatters ASAP) BiggerPockets Real Estate 390 - 7 Figures From ONE Deal With Leka Devatha Connect with Denise: https://www.thefgfirm.law/attorneys/denise-medina/ Connect with Patrick: www.medalistlegal.com Jump to topic: 00:00) Intro (02:17) "Squatting" Explained (06:00) A Rise in Squatters? (10:22) Squatters' Rights (19:01) What Landlords Can Do (26:19) Tips for Landlords (28:15) How Squatting is Changing (33:03) Cash for Keys Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-216 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So imagine that you have a rental property. Everything's going well. Then you have a vacancy for a month,
0:06.0	only to find someone who didn't actually lease out your property is living in it. Today, we're
0:12.1	going to talk about this situation, which is otherwise known as Squatters and Squatters' Rights.
0:22.2	Hey, everyone.
0:23.1	Welcome to On the Market.
0:24.5	I'm your host, Dave Meyer.
0:26.0	And with me today is James Dainerd.
0:28.9	James, being an investor in Seattle, I imagine you've run across squatters a time or two.
0:35.0	This is just part of the nature of the beast in Seattle. We deal with squatters
0:38.7	on the regular. We always at least have one or two going on at any given time. Not fun, but it's
0:44.3	just a new thing you got to dodge around as an investor. It seems crazy. I don't know if you
0:49.4	notice this, but I've been hearing about it at least more on the news. Have you seen an uptick in instances of squatting in your portfolio?
0:58.5	Yeah, we see it in the news, but we've also seen it in our portfolio for sure.
1:02.3	It's, you know, a lot of the properties that we purchase and how we get a good buy are actually a lot of times filled with squatters or they're very problematic.
1:11.8	And so we have to deal with it regularly. Um, anything. And we're also developers. Developers are really targeted by squatters
1:17.7	because they're vacant homes. They're waiting for permits. They can check to see the permits
1:21.8	pulled. And so we deal with an especially lot in our development. Even when we board them up,
1:26.3	they get inside and then we have to deal with this eviction.
1:29.1	Yeah, well, I'm sorry to hear that.
1:31.0	That it sounds like a huge pain.
1:33.3	And I do think that at least in the media, this is coming up more and more.
1:37.7	And we wanted to help real estate investors understand what squatters are, what squatters rights are, and what landlords' rights
	...

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