Perspective: CA law has got to stop conflating tenants with squatters
Jacques Callot: The Peasant Squatting, from The Caprices, 1617-1627. Image in Public Domain
Local anti-squatting activist (also known as “The Squatting Hunter”) Flash Shelton sat down with California Insider to discuss frequently exploited loopholes that hurt homeowners—along with his proposed solution of tighter, smarter tenancy legislation. Excerpts from their conversation, originally on YouTube, are highlighted below.
Flash Shelton: There is no actual squatter law or squatter right. And people out of California will say, “Oh, of course, California, squatters have rights,” but the truth is tenants have rights. And I think that's also a misconception from tenants. A lot of tenants are against what I'm doing because they don't understand that if I get the laws changed, it's not going to affect tenant rights. What I want to do is clear the lines between tenants and squatters. Right now, they're blurred. Right now, squatters are taking advantage of the fact that California is a very tenant-friendly state. So tenants, for example, have to be served process. You have to go to civil court. They do not have to leave until a judge tells them, “This is the date you have to leave.” A tenant is allowed to defend themselves. They're allowed to produce evidence of why they shouldn't be evicted: they've been paying rent, they had a lease, they had a legal contract—
[Host] Siyamak Khorrami: which are good things for tenants, which are good things for these to protect.
FS: Which are good things for tenants. Exactly. A squatter can come up with a fake lease, or even in California, just say they have a lease. … And so, a police officer that comes out and responds to a homeowner calling about a squatter. A squatter says, “I live here,” says, “I have a lease, I have a verbal lease, I have a whatever,” right? They just have to create some sort of doubt, that that officer in California is not allowed to differentiate. They're not allowed to; so once they are told that they live there, then it's a civil matter because that's what they're trained to say. So being that squatters are taking tenant rights, instead of there being an absolute law saying that you have to pay rent to be a tenant--
SK: and you have to have a real lease--
FS: you have to have a real lease, maybe a lease should be notorized. … [And] how did you gain entrance? There needs to be a clear law... (17:19-19:41)
FS: The second thing [for eradicating squatting] is changing laws. Now, just because you change a law, just because you make a law doesn't mean that people won't figure out a way around it. But if squatters think that they are going to spend jail time, and it's going to cost them money, and they're going to spend a year in jail for squatting, it will prevent a lot of squatters. It'll prevent some squatters from doing it in the first place because right now, these squatters are doing it because there's no restitution; there's no penalty; there's no crime; there's no consequences, right?
SK: It doesn't even go on their record.
FS: It doesn't even go on their record. … But there's no consequence, so right now, the squatters have nothing to lose, right? They can damage, they can destroy your house $30-40,000 damage; but you cannot get a dime from them. That's how they're working right now. That's why it's worth it for them to try. But if we can change the laws to where squatting is actually a criminal offense instead of a civil offense, it's going to prevent squatting. Is it going to prevent all of them? No, … but the risk will be a lot higher, so some of them are going to think twice. So changing laws and making a clear distinction between squatter and tenant, giving tenants all the rights that they deserve but making that threshold higher, making it be like, for example, getting notorized leases. (32:36-34:38)
Watch the whole thing here.
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