by James Mixon 4 Replies latest jw friends
A Portland man who recently purchase a home was surprised to learn a family had moved ahead
of him and changed the locks. He called the police officer and he said there was nothing he could do.
He offered the occupant money to move out, without success.
Squatters have rights here.
Do squatters have rights in your country????
This sounds off. Squatter's rights usually apply to land, and in Canada, this:
Acquiring valid title to real property through adverse possession is possible in most Canadian common law provinces.
The fundamental rule is simple enough: if a person occupies land for the required period of time as set out in provincial limitation acts and, during that time, no legal action is taken to evict or intrespass, the ownership in the land goes from the legal owner to the squatter.
The time limitations run from 10-20 years, depending on provincial legislation. You can't just move into an empty house, change the locks, and PRESTO! it's yours. In land cases, the 'squatters' may have paid taxes for many years, and/or used a piece of land whose boundaries were not legally challenged and/or defined and the legal owner did not instigate the process of legally securing her/his property.
Nope. Fortunately common sense does prevail here where I am!
There is a difference though when it comes to people who have occupied land (NOT private dwellings) for a long period of time. They could be able to claim compensation in certain cases when asked to move. Reason being that the land owner should have asked them to vacate within a reasonable period of time & they were negligent in caring for their land which the settlers in turn cared for. However, the squatters would NOT be able to claim the land for themselves contrary to the exanple which Talesin brought out earlier
The case happen in 2014, the Portland guy had just purchase the home. He went to court and
paid money to get the folks out of his home.
I did a bit of googling - apparently, this is a big problem in Oregon. And it's all because of the real estate bubble, crash, and subsequent abandonment of so many houses by their owners. The banks foreclosed, homes were abandoned, and squatters moved in.
The laws in that state appear to be such that they must be legally evicted. The bank sells to an unsuspecting buyer, then says "Oh, squatters? That's your problem now." Laws here would not permit that.
