Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday signed into law legislation to criminalize squatting, the practice of living in another person’s home or vehicle without their consent.
“This is insanity that people think they can come in and take over someone’s home,” Kemp told Fox News. “Illegal squatters are criminals, not residents,” he added on social media.
House Bill 1017, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the state House and Senate, makes squatting punishable with criminal misdemeanor trespass charges and fines for back rent. It also allows people to be evicted within three days of receiving notice from a law enforcement officer that they are squatting.
The National Rental Home Council estimates roughly 1,200 metro Atlanta homes have been occupied by squatters. The landlord trade group commended Kemp and HB 1017’s sponsors — all Republicans — for passing the legislation, hailing it as a solution to a proliferation of unlawful tenancy.
“Beyond the obvious property rights issues involved, this legislation will enhance the safety and security of communities and neighborhoods and will make housing more accessible and attainable,” the group said in a press release.
But Eric Dunn, the National Housing Law Project’s litigation director, countered that squatting isn’t a big enough problem to warrant this kind of measure.
“Squatting on real property is rare and insignificant,” he said in an email. “It does not occur with sufficient frequency to demand serious policy discussion.” The National Housing Law Project advocates for tenants and low-income homeowners.
Could landlords abuse new law?
Dunn noted that property owners already possess ample legal tools to remove squatters. “Enacting unnecessary new measures to make removing squatters even quicker and easier than it already is could threaten the rights and procedures for legitimate tenants, whom landlords might falsely accuse of squatting in order to circumvent tenant protections,” he warned.
Some predatory landlords, he added, already find ways to illegally evict renters, by changing locks, cutting off utilities, or employing other dubious tactics.
This new law could empower some Georgia landlords to wrongly deem tenants illegal occupants to have them removed, Dunn said. “Criminalizing squatting, as the Georgia legislation does, raises the specter of police removing occupants just because the landlord claims they are squatters.”
“This kind of law can also have a chilling effect on tenants, who often do not know what rights and protections may be available to them and may not trust police to honor or respect their rights as tenants or lawful occupants,” he added.
Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation executive director Michael Lucas echoed Dunn’s concerns. He said in a text message that his organization, which represents tenants facing eviction, already deals with illegal evictions “far too often.”
“The concern with this legislation is that it will give unscrupulous landlords another tool to force tenants out and violate their rights,” Lucas said.
Monica Johnson, an organizer with the Housing Justice League, a local tenant advocacy group, said HB 1017 underscores Georgia lawmakers’ unwillingness to confront the statewide shortage of affordable housing, now at a crisis level for many residents.
“The government of the state of Georgia, while attacking unions that seek to increase wages, maintains a ban on rent control, while rents have increased approximately 30% just over the pandemic,” she said in an email.
“The cynical criminalization of squatters while creating the conditions for homelessness shows a deep disparity between these officials’ jobs as public servants and their allegiance to the interests of property owners,” Johnson said.
HB 1017’s sponsors did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
I would like to plead with anyone interested in squatting to go into Eric Dunn’s house with a fake lease and take over his house. This guy has to take his own medicine. My God how sweet the poetic justice will be!
Lets be real squatting is a problem. Advocates don’t own property or operate rental business. Yet they know what’s best what a joke. Let it be there 200,000 home on the line infested with squatters and the narrative changes. They big mad the loophole is closed. I monitor tenant protection groups so I know the latest technique they tell people on how to stay “safely housed” in someone’s else’s property they stopped paying rent in. And squatting is one….. Good job Governor Kemp! “Keep Choppin”. And let’s make sure we evict quick!!!
How to actually use this bill for the landlord who already has the Writ of Possession from the court, but Captain Hill of Fulton County refuses to provide a date on when an eviction will occur of illegal squatters.
Furthermore, I called the city of South Fulton today to enforce this bill and was told I still had to wait on the Marshal, despite me having an approved Writ of Possession in my hand from a month ago.
When is the law enforcement officers going to get the memo that squatters have to GO???