A Georgia man claims he returned home from caring for his sick wife to find that squatters had changed the locks on his home and moved in — and now local laws are blocking him from evicting the alleged freeloaders.
“Basically, these people came in Friday, broke into my house and had a U-Haul move all their stuff in. It’s frustrating. It’s very frustrating. I can’t even sleep,” DeKalb man Paul Callins told WSB-TV.
Callins had sunk thousands of dollars into the home and renovated with his own hands after he inherited it from his late father, but since squatters moved in he’s found himself facing nothing but obstacles to evict the alleged intruders.
“I guess they have done this before, because when I called the police, they said since they have a fake lease, that they can’t do anything. That it’s a civil matter,” Callins said.
Callins believes the squatters targeted him after posting a rental advertisement online. He’d been planning to rent to a government-subsidized tenant when he lost the house, WSB-TV reported.
Rather than forcibly evicting the squatters, Georgia law requires homeowners file an “Affidavit of Intruder” which then needs to work its way through the court system before police can act, Callins explained.
“I have to go through the court system, and I understand it could take 60 to 90 days,” the homeowner said.
Situations like Callins’ have become all too common in Georgia.
About 1,200 homes across DeKalb County are currently occupied by squatters, according to the National Rental Home Council trade group. The problem is exacerbated by its status as a civil matter, which prevents homeowners from easily evicting intruders, according to critics.
Lawmakers in Georgia are nearing the passage of a bill which would make squatting a criminal offense and using a fake lease a felony, which would allow police officers to arrest offenders.
“These are people that know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re stealing other people’s most valuable capital, which is their home,” Rep. Devan Seabaugh, a Republican co-sponsoring the bill, told Fox News.
“I don’t know how it took us this long to get here… but no more free rides.”