Jonathan Turley: Squatters are a big problem

Jonathan Turley has an opinion piece today about squatters and the ways in which these people take advantage of clogged courts and legal loopholes to take advantage of property owners. Recently a friend of his was forced to deal with a squatter.

A retiree friend of mine was away from her home is 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…

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.

As Turley points out, his friend’s situation is just part of a larger problem. A few weeks ago, a Fox News affiliate in Florida reported on a man who returned from an extended overseas trip and found his house had been trashed by a squatter. At the time of his arrival, the squatter was absent but he believed he would return to continue living in and looting the house. He was right about that.

The homeowner told authorities he was in New Zealand for seven months and got back home on June 9. He came home to find his house trashed and burglarized with several items missing, which he reported to police earlier in the day. In an attempt to catch the alleged squatter when he returned, the homeowner said he slept in a closet.

That’s when his alarm went off at around 8 p.m., where he found [Ze’Moye] Brown peeking into the room where he was lying down. The homeowner reportedly yelled at Brown to get out of his house, and the two began to argue about who actually owns the house. Brown said the home didn’t belong to the homeowner, and that’s when a shot was fired into the bottom left corner of the front door, according to the affidavit. Brown then ran out of the house.

In a post-Miranda interview with authorities, Brown said he was living at that house for “a few months” and he was the only one staying there, to his knowledge. He denied stealing the items the homeowner reported earlier in the day. He also said all the windows and doors were unlocked when he arrived and claimed the house was vacant for three years.

Brown was arrested and has been charged with several crimes. Of course he has denied stealing anything from the house so the homeowner will likely never see his belongings again.

An ABC affiliate in California reported last month on an even worse case. A couple named Karen and Skip Morairty had turned their first home, where they were married, into a rental property. They had moved into a larger house when they had kids but always expected to sell the larger house and move back into their first home once the kids had moved out. Prior to retiring they decided to lease the house one more time and were quickly contacted by a couple who seemed like idea tenants.

When Ann and Mario Figueroa reached out, they met for a house tour.

“They were a mature couple,” recalled Karen.

“They were older, didn’t have kids or pets or anything,” said Skip. “(We) had a nice long conversation. It was all set. They seemed like wonderful people.”

To seal the deal, Karen requested documents, including a credit report and 401(k) statement which said Mario had $455,823.80 saved.

With all of the preliminaries out of the way, the Figueroa’s signed documents and the Morairtys handed over the house keys. When the first month’s rent was due, they got a note with a story about how a relative had died and they had to contribute for the funeral. Other excuses followed and within a few months it was clear they were never planning to pay rent. The Morairtys found themselves having to pay the mortage every month out of their savings while their renters lived in the house for free, apparently holding parties with their friends.

After contacting a realtor for help, the Morairty’s discovered all of the paperwork they’d been given by the Figueroas was fraudulent. But the realtor also discovered something else. They’d done the same scam many times before.

Court records show there have been at least eight prior residences in Sacramento County that Mario and Ann have lived in for months and not paid rent since 2008.

They’ve been evicted from homes in Wilton, Elk Grove, Orangevale and Fair Oaks, court documents show. Some of those homes are just blocks from one another.

ABC 10 spoke to the owner of one of those homes that had evicted the squatters previously. Tari Gunn said the whole process had been almost exactly the same. Instead of rent, she received excuses about the same relative dying and the same follow-up excuses for why the couple couldn’t pay rent for the first several months. In fact, the Morairty’s house was only 2.5 miles away from Tari Gunn’s house.

Eventually, the Figueroas were evicted but the process took nine months. Barry Mathis, a property manager with lots of experience dealing with squatters, helped remove them.

“If you follow administrative law, it will go step one, two, three, four and pretty much go by the book… with a few exceptions and this is one of those exceptions when you get professional tenants that are in there and have been evicted seven, eight times from other properties,” said Mathis. “They have $75,000 to $100,000 in judgements behind them. The system was not built for people like them.”…

Between those laws and backed up/overwhelmed courts, California’s system enables squatters, Mathis says.

“We’re so into victims’ rights… but the problem is in this case, they don’t see the landlords as a victim,” said Mathis.

The the squatters are off to ruin someone else’s life and the Morairtys will never see the money they are owed or the money needed to fix damage left behind. In fact, because of the money they were on the hook for, they decided it was easier to sell the house. Here’s the full video report on this story. This kind of con artistry ought to result in people going to prison where they should stay for months without paying rent.