The new squatters laws spreading across the country let a property owner skip the traditional eviction lawsuit and have the sheriff remove an unauthorized occupant within days of filing a sworn complaint. More than a dozen states enacted or expanded these statutes in 2025 alone, including Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, with Texas sending comprehensive reform legislation to the governor in mid-2025. The details vary, so your own state’s statute is the one that matters, but the structure is consistent: a verified complaint to law enforcement, verification of ownership, and removal without a court hearing.
Who Counts as a Squatter Under These Laws
The expedited process is built for one situation: someone entered the property without permission and has no lease, written or oral, tying them to the owner. If that describes your occupant, the new laws treat them as a trespasser rather than a tenant, and law enforcement can act accordingly. That removes the old roadblock where police told owners the dispute was civil and sent them to housing court.
Most statutes exclude current or former tenants, immediate family members of the owner, and anyone involved in pending litigation over the property. If there is any colorable claim to tenancy, you still have to use the traditional eviction process. The fast track is for clear-cut unauthorized occupation, not gray-area disputes.
Filing the Sworn Complaint With the Sheriff
The owner, or an authorized agent, submits a sworn complaint or affidavit to the sheriff’s office in the county where the property sits. Under penalty of perjury, you declare several specific facts:
- You hold legal title to the property.
- The occupant entered without authorization.
- The occupant has no lease or rental agreement.
- You have already told the person to leave.
- The occupant is not a family member or former tenant.
Documentation of ownership goes with the complaint, usually a recorded deed or a recent property tax statement. Some jurisdictions accept these filings online through a civil process portal; others require in-person submission. The sheriff’s office verifies ownership against county records, and once that check clears, the matter moves forward without a court hearing.
Filing fees and service costs vary by county. Budget for a sheriff’s service fee and potentially a filing fee. The total is a fraction of what a full eviction lawsuit costs, and that cost difference is one of the main practical reasons to use the new process.
How Fast Removal Happens
After verification, the sheriff serves the occupant with a notice to vacate and removes them. Timelines are written differently from state to state. Some statutes say the sheriff must act “without delay” after confirming ownership. Others set a brief window, with most aiming to finish within a few days of the complaint.
Be present, or have an authorized representative present, when the sheriff arrives. You take immediate possession at that point, and the standard move is to change the locks and add security measures right away. If you are not there to secure the property, the sheriff leaves and the occupant, or someone else, can walk right back in.
Criminal Penalties the Occupant Now Faces
The new statutes do more than speed up removal. They attach criminal consequences that older trespass laws often missed.
The baseline charge in most states is criminal trespass, usually a misdemeanor carrying potential jail time measured in months and fines that can reach several thousand dollars depending on the jurisdiction. If the occupant causes property damage above certain dollar thresholds, the charge often jumps to a felony with potential prison sentences of several years.
The more targeted change is the criminalization of document fraud. Presenting a forged lease, counterfeit deed, or fake ID to claim a right to the property is now a felony in several states. In some jurisdictions, that is a third-degree felony carrying up to five years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. This provision aims directly at the tactic squatters relied on most: waving a piece of paper at responding officers and claiming they belonged there. Making that specific behavior a standalone felony closes one of the biggest loopholes in the old system.
Some states also criminalize listing or advertising someone else’s property for rent or sale, which targets the upstream scam of collecting rent or a deposit on a property the scammer does not own.
When the Occupant Claims They Have a Lease
This is the hard case. Under the old framework, a verbal claim of tenancy was usually enough to stop police from acting and push the dispute into housing court for weeks or months.
The new laws handle this two ways. The sworn complaint puts your statement under penalty of perjury, giving law enforcement a verified document to credit. The fraud provisions put the occupant at serious criminal risk if their tenancy claim is false. If the sheriff confirms you are the record owner and the occupant cannot produce a legitimate lease traceable to you, removal proceeds. An occupant who believes the removal was wrong can sue afterward; what they cannot do is freeze the situation while they argue about it.
That change in sequencing, removal first and litigation second, is the single biggest shift these laws make.
Your Liability for a Wrongful Removal
Speed cuts both ways. Because the sheriff acts on your sworn statement without a judge weighing in, you carry real risk if that statement is wrong. Filing a false affidavit is perjury in every state, and several of the new statutes expressly create a civil cause of action for wrongful removal.
A person who was wrongfully removed can typically sue for actual damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees. Some states add statutory penalties on top, such as triple the fair market rent of the property. The complaint form usually includes an acknowledgment of this liability before you sign, and the acknowledgment is not a formality. If you have any doubt that the person inside might have a legitimate claim, even a weak one, pay for an hour with an attorney before you file.
Officers acting in good faith on a verified complaint are generally shielded. The legal exposure sits with the owner who started the process.
Why Self-Help Still Backfires
Even with the sheriff’s process available, some owners want to handle it themselves by changing the locks, cutting the utilities, or confronting the occupant. In most states, self-help eviction is illegal no matter who is inside. Shutting off water or electricity, removing doors, or blocking access can expose you to criminal charges such as criminal mischief, along with civil liability for damages, attorney fees, and in some states statutory penalties.
The practical irony is that these shortcuts often strengthen the occupant’s position. A clear trespasser suddenly has grounds to sue for wrongful lockout, and the award can dwarf whatever the squatter was costing you. The point of the new statutes is that you do not have to do any of this yourself. The sheriff’s process takes days.
Handling Property Left Behind
Once the occupant is out, their belongings create a separate obligation. Most states require you to store abandoned items for a set period before disposing of them, ranging from roughly seven to sixty days depending on the jurisdiction. Hauling everything to the curb the day the sheriff leaves can expose you to liability even for property belonging to someone who had no right to be in the home.
A safer sequence:
- Photograph and inventory everything, including any locked or sealed containers, which you should not open.
- Send written notice to the former occupant at any known address, listing the items, their estimated value, where they are stored, and the deadline for retrieval.
- Store the items in a reasonable location for the period your state requires.
After the storage period, you can generally dispose of or sell the items, though some states require sale proceeds to be turned over to the state rather than kept by the owner. Vehicles are a separate matter; report them to local law enforcement as abandoned rather than trying to take title directly. Hauling and storage costs add up quickly, with junk removal alone running anywhere from $60 to $700 depending on volume.
Federal Protection for Military Occupants
One federal rule overrides state law regardless of where your property is. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act prohibits evicting active-duty military members or their dependents from a residence without a court order, as long as the monthly rent falls below a threshold that adjusts annually from a $2,400 base set in 2003. A court can stay the proceedings for at least ninety days if the servicemember’s ability to pay rent is materially affected by military service. Violating this protection is a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3951 – Evictions and Distress
If the person inside your property is an active-duty servicemember, a spouse, or a dependent, the state expedited process may conflict with federal law, and federal law controls. Talk to an attorney before filing the complaint. A wrongful removal that violates the SCRA carries both criminal and civil consequences.
Keeping the Problem From Starting
Vacant properties are the target. Weekly drive-bys, security cameras with remote alerts, outdoor lighting, maintained landscaping, and visible signs of active ownership all make a property a worse target. For longer vacancies, steel window and door guards hold up better than plywood, which is easy to bypass and announces that the house is empty. Interior light timers, mail holds, and a neighbor who will call you if something looks off are low-cost additions. If you rent through a management company, confirm the lease requires tenants to tell you before vacating, so you know the day the unit goes empty.
If you think someone has already gotten in, do not go to the door. Call law enforcement and start the sworn complaint process your state provides. Time matters. The longer an unauthorized occupant stays, the more complicated removal becomes, even under the new laws.