JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Governor Ron DeSantis officially signed a bill that will combat squatting in Florida. The law will go into effect on July 1.
He said signing the bill will help protect the private property rights of homeowners.
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“In Florida, we are going to take action today to end this scam and protect the private property rights of our homeowners. You should not have anyone go on your property and take it over and then try to assert some rights. It’s absurd. We’re going to put an end to it today and we’ll be leading the way yet again in the process,” DeSantis said.
This comes after a News4JAX I-TEAM investigation exposing how a loophole in the law allowed people to live rent-free in a home for weeks while the property’s owner, Patti Peeples, wasn’t allowed on the premises.
“It gives me a real feeling of positive hope that we still have the ability to discuss challenges in our society and work with our legislatures in a bipartisan way,” Peeples said.
RELATED | I-TEAM: Court ordering women to leave rental property where owner says they’ve been squatting
It’s been a year since Peeples found strangers had moved into her rental property.
They refused to leave, and it was Peeples who was banned from the premises as the case spent weeks moving through civil court. When she first discovered those unwelcome guests living there, they produced a lease, claiming they were victims of a rental scam, again. Court records revealed they made the same claim at a nearby house.
It took months for the owners to evict them, right around the time they moved into Peeples’ house.
After several weeks, the women were evicted, and the house was left with tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
“It’s just the wild west,” Peeples said. “They simply move from one place to another.”
Now, DeSantis signed a bill to put a stop to it.
The bill allows law enforcement to immediately remove squatters who do not have a lease authorized by the property owner. It also adds criminal penalties, including designating intentionally presenting a fraudulent lease as a misdemeanor and making it a felony to intentionally sell or lease someone else’s property or intentionally cause more than $1,000 in property damage while squatting or trespassing.
The women who made themselves at home at Peeples’ house were never criminally charged.
“I have never felt more unempowered or helpless in my life than on March 1, 2023,” Peeples said.
It was soon after that date when Peeples first shared her story with the I-TEAM. Later, she was invited to share it on national TV and then, in Tallahassee.
Peeples said she is not surprised her story has resonated so widely.
“I’ll tell you why. Because at the crux of this issue is just basic unfairness, you know, if we don’t have the right to inhabit our own property, then what kind of world are we living in?” Peeples said.
The bill allows a person wrongfully evicted to sue to be placed back inside, as well as recover attorneys’ fees and damages.
Critics, including from Florida Rising, which is a group advocating for historically marginalized communities, had previously expressed concerns that the bill could lead to abusive landlords removing lawful tenants.
However, in a statement to the I-TEAM today, a spokesperson said they are now neutral on the bill’s passage because they feel it was satisfactorily amended to protect legitimate tenants from wrongful eviction.