Squatting is getting out of hand on Southern California

[ripcord]

After all the stories I have read it finally happened to a neighbor, she got a call that people were moving into the mobile home she rents. It had been vacant for less than two weeks while she did some repairs and painting to get it ready for the next tenant. Someone living nearby phoned her and told her people were moving in, she called the sheriff and they produced a fake lease so the deputies backed off and said it was a civil affair now. It is sad that she has to go through the whole eviction process to remove a bunch of criminals who forged a contract. Hopefully the authorities will bring charges over the forgery and these people are actually punished for their actions.

[mikeysnot]

1. How'd they get the keys?

Show up change locks throw their shit in the street. Preferably when they are gone.

[ripcord]

3. Obviously you don't live in California

They change the locks first thing, show the deputies their keys work and the fake lease and immediately they are tenants in the eyes of the law until it can be proven otherwise. The burden of proof is all on the landlord.

[mikeysnot]

5. Obviously we handle things differently in Chicago

Turn of the utilities if they are not in their name, as landlord you have a right to make repairs. Remove toilets and sinks for “upgrades”. Then never replace or stall reinstallation.

Also as landlord you have a right to inspect the property. Show up at 7 am.. you have a obligation to forewarn them in advance. Ask for phone number to contact them. Call once a week. At night 24 hours in advance.

If they start trashing the place, which they usually do, call health inspector. If they have too many people living there, and It goes against trailer court rules of occupation. Now the trailer court is involved.

If they have a drive way rent one of those storage bins. Drop a few in the drive.

They hope you go through the court which can take months just to get a hearing.

Go to an office supply and get yellow or orange sticker paper(whatever color CA uses) and make a fake eviction notice, fill it on in sloppy handwriting, slap a date of eviction at 30 days out. You can get one off the internet.

If they still don’t get it hire a team to harden the windows with intrusion covers for “security”.

Most of this is cheaper than lawyers and courts.

It is easy to make their life hell. Make sure insurance covers damages.

I am sure it’s possible that one of your neighbors have helped to enable them, ask around for neighbor support. Let everyone know what’s up.

Get me a copy of lease. Pm me. I hate fucking deadbeat cheats.

[Zeitghost]

7. Unfortunatly

Many of those tactics would get you sued in California, if not arrested. It can take months to legally evict and you can not do anything to the utilities etc.

[mikeysnot]

8. Sued by who? The squatters?

What ground do they have to stand on. Show up in court with a fraudulent lease? No proof of downpayment. Rent payments. Etc. they usually move on, and yes I have experience with this.

[Zeitghost]

12. The laws in CA...

Heavily favor tenants, both legal and illegal. If a tenant or squatter wants to fight it, it's an absolute nightmare here in CA.

Landlords can win, but it takes months and thousands of dollars and hours of time and the whole time they are destroying your property. It's often easier to bribe squatters to leave. My mom's last one finally took $3,000 (after non payment of rent for 4 months) to leave. She will no longer advertise rentals and will only take direct referrals from friends and family, that way there is social pressure to pay rent. Much better to let the place sit vacant than risk any chance at a bad tenant.

[mikeysnot]

17. Key words "want to fight it"

most do not have the means and they are using the system against you. They know they are on borrowed time.

Someone mentioned that they may have been victims of fraud themselves. If that is the case they need to find the guy who did this.

Get a description of perp and find other properties that they may be defrauding others. Call around they may be doing it to others, show up at showings. They had to of called him if this is the case.

They ae the same Laws here in IL.

[Zeitghost]

22. The problem

Is you are not allowed to do any of the things you suggested (turn off power, etc.) here in CA. If you try, you will have an immediate injunction to turn it back on until the eviction proceeding have finished, which will be 3-9 months depending on the situation.

[mikeysnot]

23. Key words are if they are in owners name

You can schedule to transfer to the “tenants” name. You have to give notice of transfer. They will have to put up deposits to put the utilities in renters name. Worked for us here. Not sure about your state.

[ZonkerHarris]

16. I know a completely different "Chicago Way" to handle this

no lawyers required.

[mikeysnot]

18. Not sure but guns are more prevalent now

then when we had to deal with this shit.

[ZonkerHarris]

20. ...

[haele]

19. This is a common gang scam for single residence home rentals.

Sometimes, there's even a 'real estate/property management agent' or moving company involved, that will notify scammers who use Craigslist that a rental property is now vacant. With the cost of rents, they can quickly get a desperate family in and change the locks before the owner/landlord starts to clean or renovate for a new tenant.
A similar scam is going about where a gang illegally sells a recently vacated rental house to some unsuspecting first time buyer who doesn't know how a house is legally purchased in the state or in the US. The new buyers in these cases tend to be recent immigrants from counties where property could be transferred with little title requirements.
If the property was vacant for only two weeks and there were fake rental agreements, this isn't a case of squatters moving in. This is a somewhat sophisticated criminal scam. In previous decades, squatting usually occured when a house stood empty for more than several months without anyone coming around regularly to work on it or keep it secure. So most communities don't have a significant legal recourse for owners to deal with squatters or other real estate scams other than the regular eviction process.
In my opinion, this particular situation should be a criminal matter against the group who rented or sold the property without being the owner, as well as a civil eviction process against the squatter.

Haele

[mikeysnot]

24. If the renters were scammed

it is a whole different ballgame. Make a deal to pay the real owner, not the scammers. Honor the scam lease until it runs out.

See if they will work with you to get the scammers, not that hard for them to recognize the perps.

Redo the lease if they are good tenants.

If they are scammers, put the property up for Sale, at a real high price to "recoup loses incurred on lost income".

Have regular showings weekly, you have to give notice. Parade groups of people in and out for months, if it sells at high price. So be it.

[leftstreet]

2. How did they get her info for the fake lease?

Assuming it listed her as the owner?

Crazy times

[ripcord]

4. Most likely county records

The sad thing is that squatters are almost never prosecuted for the obvious fraud.

[mikeysnot]

6. If they advertised the property online

Or newspaper also. One of the neighbors possibly. Not sure what CA law is but if no rent is received for three months you can start eviction notice.

[Takket]

9. The squatters might not even know they are squatting

In Michigan I’ve heard of people listing someone else’s home for rent. The owner has no idea. The renter has no idea. They pay up front cash to the fake owner who vanishes.

[mikeysnot]

10. That happens here also..

You have to secure your properties. My friends place had his new gas meter ripped off the day after it was installed. It was a rehab he was in the middle of finishing. Came in and smelled gas.

He had just finished his cigarette before walking in.

[Wingus Dingus]

11. We just had a pickup and old rv trailer pull onto the undeveloped residential lot next door to me--

put out their slides, had a container of water, put on a gas generator like they were going to camp there. (Generator parked in the tall weeds and grass--HUGE fire hazard in our dry climate) They were NOT affiliated in any way with whomever owns the lot. Good thing was they were blocking a community trail, so I called the police and they were made to leave within five hours of their "camping" setup. Fucking squatters. Have no idea why people think any open space is fair game.

[Samrob]

13. So is UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING getting out of hand. Maybe a link, ya think? nt

[EX500rider]

14. In Florida any mobile home park tenant has to pass a background check by the mobile home park

Or they will evict the person

[Kaleva]

15. How'd they gain access to the mobile home in the first place?

And no security cameras either I imagine. The doors and windows should be secure enough where the only way they could enter would be by breaking wines and that would set off an audible alarm and notify the owner and police.

Security cameras would record them breaking in and upload that video to the cloud.

[Bonx]

21. They might have been tricked into renting from a fake landlord

Fake landlord gates a tip from someone working on the place. Changes the locks and runs an ad on craigslist for renters. Fake landlord 'rents' the place and is paid some $$ up front and then disappears.

[cksmithy]

25. We have a few rental houses in

California. We have a management company take care of everything. Evictions, repairs, etc. with our approval. We tried to do it ourselves, but couldn't, too time consuming. One of our renters was a section 8 renter, subsidized rent, was there for 10+ years, died, one of his kids just stayed at the house, late with their portion of rent. So management went to check on things, found out the father had died, told them they were going to notify the proper authorities or he could pay all the back rent, and start paying the entire amount because he wasn't on the section 8 contract. Thankfully he said no problem, (so no court issues) and left the building. Lost 3 months rent, had to pay back the entire amount back, 6 weeks or so for remodeling, landscaping, then got a new renter who is paying us a higher rental amount. We could never of done it ourselves. We had to go through 2 companies to find this one, who does a great job. They have lots of vendors for plumbing, dry walling, cleaning, you name it, at very reasonable prices. The houses pay for themselves, they still are beneficial to our taxes. We'll probably still keep them as inheritance for the grand kids. I could tell some horror stories before we got a good management company.