Want a mansion? Just take one

'Luxury squatters' take over vacant houses and declare themselves owners. In Seattle, one family moved into a $3.3 million place.

Posted by Teresa Mears on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 5:47 PM

For years, the 8,000-square-foot mansion in suburban Seattle sat vacant and for sale, the price gradually coming down from $5.8 million to $3.3 million. One day in June, a 30-year-old woman, a man and two children took down the for-sale signs, changed the locks, moved in and declared it their home.

They didn't actually buy the house, or even rent it. They just moved in and declared it their house.

Jill Lane, who was arrested on a charge of trespassing after two weeks in the house, is not contrite, The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat reports. Not only did she try to take over the mansion, with its wine cellar, home theater, six bedrooms and nine baths, she has staked a claim to 10 other bank-owned houses in the Seattle area.

"Banks do whatever they want and nobody holds them accountable," Lane told Westneat by phone from Disneyland, where she went on vacation after she was released by the police. She and her partner ran a company that pledged to "eliminate mortgages" and help others move into empty foreclosed homes.

"It makes me ill to see what the banks are doing. They aren't using their bailout money to help anyone. So I'm standing up for the people who are being brutalized by banks every day."

And we thought we were making a political statement against the banks by abandoning credit cards and paying cash.

Bing: Squatters in foreclosed homes
You can listen to a radio interview with Lane here and see TV stories here and here.

Lane is one of a number of people nationwide who are taking over other people's vacant homes, some using a quirk in the law called "adverse possession," which dates to 16th-century England, Sally Kestin reported in the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale. She wrote:

Adverse possession allows non-owners of a property to eventually take ownership if they pay the taxes, occupy, maintain and improve the land for a period of years -- seven in Florida. The purpose was to prevent abandoned properties from sitting idle with no one paying taxes on them.

It's been used mostly to take over abandoned farmland or settle boundary disputes, such as a fence or building encroaching on a neighbor's property.
In Fort Lauderdale's Broward County and neighboring Palm Beach County, three men were arrested on felony charges and a fourth is under investigation for trying to take over 200 houses.

"We look at this as another con job, another get-rich-quick scheme,'' Don TenBrook, a Broward state prosecutor of economic crimes, told the Sun-Sentinel. "You're starting to see them pop up all over the place.''

Fitzroy Ellis tried to claim 48 properties, Broward officials said, including one worth $1 million. He told police he planned to rent out the houses and condos at a good price "since he didn't have to pay anything for the homes,'' the newspaper reported. He was charged with six counts of grand theft -- allegations, he wrote in court documents, that are "false and an abuse of power.''

Mark Guerette of suburban West Palm Beach filed court papers to take possession of 103 homes. Police say Guerette rented out six of the homes and collected more than $20,000 from tenants before he was arrested and charged with running an organized scheme to defraud.

He pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Robert Shearin, said Guerette is trying to help people by rescuing blighted homes. "The banks are letting these properties go down the tubes,'' Shearin told the Sen-Sentinel. "Here's a guy trying to help out, and he ends up in jail.''

In Pasco County, north of Tampa, Stephen Bybel drove around scouting for vacant homes. When he found one he wanted, he posted a small notice on the door, citing "adverse possessions" and saying the property "has been found to be vacant, abandoned, open, unsecured and a hazard and a nuisance to the community."

He gave the owners seven days to contact him. If they failed to do so (and certainly out-of-state banks weren't likely to see those signs), Bybel would claim the property. He did that 72 times, The St. Petersburg Times reported.

He rented 31 of those homes to tenants, collecting $16,780 in rents in January alone, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said. Now all those tenants have to find new places to live.

Bybel, too, told police he was a good guy. He said "he is doing everyone involved a favor, as these vacant properties are being vandalized, burglarized and are a detriment" to neighborhoods, according to a police report.

"This is closer to burglary and grand theft than it is to adverse possession," Pasco County Sheriff Bob White said at a news conference.

Adverse possession isn't the only tactic people have used to move into someone else's luxury home.

Squatters have used bogus deeds to take over luxury homes in Southern California, citing the philosophy of the far-right "sovereign citizens" movement, saying they are beyond the reach of police and the courts. The Southern Poverty Law Center detailed their tactics in a report.

These "luxury squatters" bother the traditional groups that have advocated moving homeless people into homes that truly are abandoned, as detailed in this New York Times story.

"As we've written, squatting in foreclosed properties has become more common as homelessness and foreclosure have gone up. Operation Welcome Home envisions squatting as one part of a larger struggle to end homelessness, not a route to fancy free houses," Natalie Wendt wrote in the End Homelessness blog at Change.org.

"This (Seattle) case isn't really about squatters. It's about two brazen and greedy people (seriously, nine bathrooms?) who tried to steal property and dragged two kids and an entire movement through the mud with them," Wendt said.

Comment

My brother rehabs homes in Broward and came across this scam there. The guy just changed the locks and moved renters in while he collected the rents. My brother paid $3,000 for the guy to sign a quit claim deed so he could sell the property. Its a scam. They arent helping anybody but themselves.