Patti Peeples, a native of Florida, gained national attention earlier this year when she related how multiple squatters had moved into her Jacksonville residence and caused damages totaling $40,000. It is said that a new Florida law will stop this from occurring in the future.
Legislators in Florida are working to close a significant loophole that was enabling this to occur in people’s homes in an effort to prevent it from happening again.
After sending a handyman to conduct some work, Patti Peeples learned that two female squatters had broken into the rental home she owned. Upon learning of this, Peeples urged the squatters to go, but they refused, displaying a phony landlord’s lease, which prolonged the dispute for a little more than a month.
The property was damaged by the two girls for a total of $38,000 over that period. They destroyed the rental’s windows, walls, and cabinets in addition to breaking toilets and strewing feces all over the place.
Peeples stated to Fox News in April that “the police are completely hamstrung and these squatters know the laws better than most attorneys do.”They are aware that it is a civil case. The police have no authority to take these squatters away and handle them like criminals, treating them like people who have broken in or trespassed, and just raising their hands and telling them to go through the civil court system and be evicted.
If squatters are unable to produce a genuine and valid lease agreement from a landlord or evidence that they are making rent payments at the home, this new measure would permit law enforcement to remove them from the property right away.
This is a nationwide problem; it’s not just a Florida problem. Other states may find a way to address it with this legislation.
“I pursued this bill because I saw the impact that it had on Patti and as well as others in the state,” Republican state representative from Florida Kevin Steele told News4Jax.In addition, if someone presents false documentation, they will be penalized. Therefore, they will face criminal accusations from that angle.
Instead of effectively having to take someone’s word for it, this would make it simpler for law enforcement to arrive and make a better decision.
Vice President of Legal Affairs at Pacific Legal Foundation Jim Burling said, “If someone is living in a house and saying, ‘Hey, I signed a lease, I’m paying rent, I have a right to be here,’ whether or not that’s true, the police hear that story, then they hear a story of somebody who’s not living there and saying, ‘This is my place, these people don’t belong here,’ the police officer can’t make that legal determination.”
In general, this may assist others in avoiding problems similar to what Patti encountered. Legally speaking, this is a challenging problem to resolve, but this could assist things along.
