Republican lawmakers in Georgia are taking aim at Atlanta’s ongoing squatting problem, proposing a bill that would make it a criminal offense.
According to the trade group National Rental Home Council, 1,200 homes have been occupied by squatters in the city.
Because law enforcement is subject to tenants’ rights laws, landlords have limited options for reclaiming their property, but the new law could make it easier.
The proposed bill, called the Georgia Squatter Reform Act, expands criminal trespass to include people entering a property without the owner’s consent for any period of time.
The new law means that anyone caught occupying a home without consent or legal authority will be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor and fined.
Georgia Republican lawmakers like Devan Seabaugh, seen here, support the new proposal.
According to the trade group National Rental Home Council, 1,200 homes have been occupied by squatters in the city.
Rep. Devan Seabaugh, a Republican who is co-sponsoring the bill, said Fox News Digital on Monday: ‘We have to do something about this. We are dealing with criminals.
‘These are people who know exactly what they are doing and they are stealing other people’s most valuable capital, which is their home.
‘I’ve heard from a lot of people. This has led them to declare bankruptcy. They are mentally damaged by it.
‘It’s a difficult situation and we have to do something. I don’t know how it took us so long to get here but no more free rides.
“What we have done is created a new code in Georgia law that says, if you are squatting in a home without authorization and you do not have consent or legal authority to be in it, you will be arrested and charged with a very serious misdemeanor. aggravated.
“You will be fined and you can spend up to a year behind bars.”
Seabaugh added that the new law would also speed up court proceedings, as hearings would be held in a magistrate’s court without a jury to reduce the time it takes to remove squatters from a property.
The Republican also told Fox that Democrats also agreed with the new measures.
A property at 4951 Wewatta Street in South Fulton, Atlanta, where four squatters were said to be running an illegal strip club.
A SWAT team arrested the four squatters after neighbors complained about the stench of marijuana, gunshots and live horses at the location.
The situation has become so dire in the city that landlords have offered to pay squatters to remove them from their homes, rather than risk losing months of rent.
One squat in the Georgia town was even run as an illegal secret strip club and had to be cleared out by an entire FBI SWAT team.
The FBI had to intervene and arrested four people who had moved in without permission at 4951 Wewatta Street in South Fulton.
The squatters vandalized the 4,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bathroom home.
Photos from inside the house after the FBI cleaned it showed the hallways eerily empty, except for a cartoonish green lizard painted on one wall.
Trash littered the property with a half-finished water bottle, a crumpled plastic bag and a bottle of Pink Whitney, the popular lemonade-infused vodka, atop a railing.
Neighbors said on weekends they had a strip club, loud parties and car races in the street.
DeAnthony Maddox (left) and Jeremy Wheat (right) were arrested at the location.
Kelvin Hall, left, and Tarahsjay Forde, right, were also arrested.
Four youths (DeAnthony Maddox, Jeremy Wheat, Kelvin Hall and Tarahsjay Forde) were arrested at the scene.
All four were booked into the Fulton County Jail on multiple charges, including several counts of theft by receiving stolen property.
Last year, Lt. Col. Dahlia Daure, deployed in the Army, said she felt “violated” when she learned that a man was occupying her home while she was on active duty.
Daure told local media that Vincent Simon, a man convicted of weapons, drugs and robbery, lived in his $500,000 home.
The Army officer had been away from her Ellenwood residence on duty in Chicago and only discovered she had moved out when the home was in the process of being sold.
‘I felt violated. If I hadn’t been serving my country, I would have been at home,” Daure told WSB-TV.
Simon was subsequently expelled and arrested following his unwanted stay, after telling Daure he would have to go to court.
National Rental Housing Council CEO David Howard previously explained to DailyMail.com: ‘Incidents of trespassing in the Atlanta metro area are disproportionately higher than in comparable markets across the country.
“The sheer volume and consistency of practice in terms of how these incidents occur are clearly indicative of some type of organized criminal effort.”
Lt. Col. Dahlia Daure said a man with a long criminal history was occupying her Atlanta-area home while she was on active duty; he then he was expelled.
The massive 4,300-square-foot property where Simon hid has five bedrooms and five bathrooms, Zillow claims, and is valued at around $495,000.
Simon was later expelled and arrested following his unwanted stay, after telling Daure he would have to go to court.
He added: “This is obviously a property rights issue first and foremost, but the impact of this type of activity extends far beyond the concerns of the individual property owner.”
‘Serious public safety issues are at stake here: Who is in the house? What is happening on the property? What is the risk to others in the neighborhood? Additionally, there is a real concern here about the availability of affordable housing.
“Every incident of squatting means there is one less home available for a family in need of a quality single-family rental home.”
“In addition to individual landlords, the squatting crisis is making business difficult for some of the country’s largest single-family rental companies.”
Online listings and virtual real estate agents can allow squatters to find vacant addresses and gain access by booking fake appointments.
Some people may not even know they are squatters, as scammers can create fake listings of empty properties and fake leases.
Once a squatter gets in, it’s hard to get them out. It can take three months to get a court hearing for an eviction and another three months to get a deputy or sheriff to clean the house.