Articles

Helpful articles to aid Management Companies, Board Members, and Housing Cooperative Professionals in handling complex legal issues.

Quash the Squat: Steps for Preventing and Dealing With Squatting

Squatters are defined as individuals who illegally occupy a property without compensation and without documentation. It is becoming more common and, unfortunately, in many situations, dangerous. In a housing cooperative, squatting can occur under a couple of different scenarios. The first is they start off as an invited guest of a Member and then they just never leave thereby establishing legal residence. Legal residence occurs when the law recognizes your use of a particular address as your home where you receive mail. This is generally a 30-day window and is generally dealt with effectively through the use of appropriately drafted guest policies and enforcement of your governing documents. Typically, you want a registration process for planned stays that are longer than a week and shorter than a month. This assures the Cooperative that occupants are authorized occupants and visitors are just visitors.

2 MIN READ

Quash the Squat: Steps for Preventing and Dealing With Squatting

Squatters are defined as individuals who illegally occupy a property without compensation and without documentation. It is becoming more common and, unfortunately, in many situations, dangerous. In a housing cooperative, squatting can occur under a couple of different scenarios. The first is they start off as an invited guest of a Member and then they just never leave thereby establishing legal residence. Legal residence occurs when the law recognizes your use of a particular address as your home where you receive mail. This is generally a 30-day window and is generally dealt with effectively through the use of appropriately drafted guest policies and enforcement of your governing documents. Typically, you want a registration process for planned stays that are longer than a week and shorter than a month. This assures the Cooperative that occupants are authorized occupants and visitors are just visitors.

The other scenario where squatters come in is when you have an unoccupied unit or irregularly occupied unit on your property. Unoccupied units can result from the death of a Member or planned vacations for “snowbird” Members who want to get away during cooler winter months. Preventative measures include ensuring unoccupied units are properly secured and, in the case with snow birds, ensure appropriate winterization of the unit and a suitable caretaker on record, either supplied by the Member or the Cooperative. Good written policy and procedures should always be at the forefront of any Cooperative Board’s operational guidelines for their communities. This allows the Board to act quickly and definitively should any issue, let alone a squatter issue, arise.

If you do have a squatter situation, the first thing you do is contact the Member of record, if applicable. If there is no Member of record, then you contact the police and establish a timeline for the next step. If the squatter refuses to leave willingly you will need to go through the legal process of a termination proceeding. This means you must give them the requisite minimum notice to vacate the premises and if they still will not leave, engage in legal proceedings to evict them. If there is a Member of record then you will treat this situation as an occupancy agreement/proprietary lease violation for unlawful subletting. The same notice procedures come into play here as well.

The best course of action to minimize squatters is of course to make the property less enticing to squatters. You can place no trespassing signs around the property which advises unauthorized persons that police will be contacted to remove anyone who is not authorized to be on the premises. Maintaining a well-lit property without creating too much disruption with light pollution in the evening is equally important. Coupling the lighting with the use of ring cameras which can be tied into local law enforcement camera feeds can also serve as a deterrent to would-be squatters.

Working together with your membership by educating them on the importance of protecting the Cooperative community from squatters is crucial. It can be costly to the membership if a Cooperative has to evict squatters who cause damage to a unit and/or neighboring units so prevention through good policy is key. Contact your cooperative attorney today to discuss what options are available to your community.

- April E. Knoch, Esq.

    Author

    April E. Knoch, Esq
    April E. Knoch, Esq
    April E. Knoch, Esq's Blog
    Comments are closed.