(Mises)—Last month, New York City homeowner Adele Andaloro was arrested after changing the locks on a house that had been seized by squatters. According to The New York Post: “Andaloro was charged with unlawful eviction because she had changed the locks and hadn’t provided a new key to the residents. The residents, however, are squatters.
Fortunately, Andaloro’s arrest was filmed and went viral, reviving an ongoing debate over squatters “rights,” under which trespassers can take over an unoccupied house or piece of land and attempt to establish legal ownership.
Not long after the Andaloro video surfaced, an immigrant TikToker with 500,000 followers posted a video encouraging other migrants to squat in private residences in the United States. The immigrant, Leonel Moreno, explained to potential squatters that under US law, “if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
These videos have fueled increasing concern among property owners who have witnessed the explosion in the numbers of aggressive homeless residents in both central cities and suburbs. This, coupled with millions of new foreign nationals flooding into US cities in recent years, has further increased concerns about a sizable, rootless and impoverished population searching for opportunities to seize unoccupied homes.
These recent examples have prompted many Americans to wonder why squatter’s rights exist at all. Historically, there have been some arguably reasonable justifications for the practice, such as in times past when real estate records were far less precise and well preserved. In modern times, however, squatter’s rights have little purpose beyond redistributing property to favored interest groups. Moreover, squatter’s rights in modern settings bear less and less resemblance to the squatter’s rights of history.
Thanks to all this, it is becoming increasingly clear that squatter’s rights have outlived whatever usefulness they may once have had. The time has come to end squatter’s rights altogether.
Rationales For Squatter’s Rights
The idea of squatter’s rights—often known by the more technical term “adverse possession”—is not new and dates back centuries to a time when private ownership of land was often not nearly as clear-cut as it is now. As legal scholar Jeffrey Stake has noted “This was a time before deeds were recorded in county courthouses… In the absence of a good set of records, contests would turn on evidence of earlier enfeoffments.” For example, as historian Keith Wrightson has explained, in a period before extensive written records and contracts, evidence of longstanding agreements about land usage and ownership might boil down to testimony from local elderly residents who relied on memories about what Party A had negotiated with Party B decades earlier. In cases like these, current possession of a piece of real estate was some of the best evidence that possession had been legally transferred in the past.
It is partly for this reason that adverse possession has always included an element of time. Historically, in most jurisdictions, a squatter must reside on the property in question for a period of years—often twenty years or more—in order to claim ownership. It is assumed that if the previous owner was willing to tolerate the squatter for so long, the land may have been the squatter’s all along. Or, the previous owner may have effectively abandoned the property.
In short, adverse possession was often justified on the grounds that it helps deal with ambiguity in claims of ownership. Even today, real estate titles are not always crystal clear. A property’s chain of title can be “clouded” with unclear ownership in the past. (This is why people property owners buy title insurance.) Historically, judges and policymakers have found squatter’s rights to be useful in that they can “reset” ownership claims and “quiet” a clouded title. Adverse possession thus provided a means for settling potentially long-term disputes over the chain of title.
Other rationales for squatter’s rights are based on popular notions about proper use of real estate. For example, adverse possession has at times been supported as a means of forcing property owners to keep an eye on their property. If long absences encourage squatting, the thinking goes, then owners are more likely to ensure the property is in order. Similarly, squatter’s rights have been justified on the grounds that absent owners aren’t using the land as efficiently or as productively as they ought to be. By this thinking, it is better to have squatters on the land, using it and improving it, rather than to let the absentee owners “do nothing.” Some supporters of adverse possession—both historically and now—have believed that property owners who are not “using” the property in a visible fashion don’t deserve to own it.
Squatter’s Rights as Violations of Property Rights
Conceivably, one might conclude that adverse possession is acceptable when used as a means of settling disputes in cases where the true owner of real property is not clear.
Beyond this, however, adverse possession amounts to little more than a means of violating property rights.
For instance, the use of squatter’s rights to somehow make land use more efficient is wholly without merit if we value the protection of private property. After all, the idea that “society” can decide what constitutes “efficient” or “correct” use of land relies on the deeply misguided notion that there is some objectively proper use of land independent of the owner’s subjective preferences. A more sound view of property ownership, on the other hand, would recognize that a property owner ought to be free to determine for himself what constitutes efficient use. If a property owner’s preference is to let a field sit fallow or a building sit empty for a period, then the owner has determined that this is the most profitable course of action—whether profitable in terms of monetary gain or in terms of psychic profit. No government planner or judge can better determine how best to use property.
Other rationales for squatter’s rights, such as motivating a property owner to visit his land regularly, amounts to a form of extortion. In this case, the regime is essentially saying “do what we want or we’ll hand your property over to whatever random trespasser chooses to settle there.”
Moreover, claims that a lack of active use by owners constitutes abandonment are extremely suspect. It is unclear why a piece of real estate becomes “abandoned” simply because the owner has not been present for a time. This is all the more untenable in modern times in which the owner of a property is nearly always clearly indicated in official records. Murray Rothbard further contends that ownership via contract certainly does not “expire” simply because an owner is physically absent. Nor is this true in cases where a person has established ownership by homesteading, the process of homesteading need not be continuously renewed. On this, Rothbard writes:
The common law of adverse possession arbitrarily sets a time span of twenty years, after which the intruder [i.e., the squatter], despite his aggression against the property of another, retains absolute ownership of the land. But our libertarian theory holds that land needs only to be transformed once by man to pass into private ownership. Therefore, if [a potential squatter] comes upon land that in any way bears the mark of a former human use, it is his responsibility to assume that the land is owned by someone. Any intrusion upon his land, without further inquiry, must be done at the risk of the newcomer being an aggressor.
Squatter’s Rights as a Political Weapon
There are many times and places, however, in which pro-squatter groups rights do not even contend that ownership rights are ambiguous, or that the land would fall into disuse and mismanagement without the squatter’s taking over.
Rather, squatter’s rights have at times been used as political weapons and as a means of essentially buying votes or rewarding politically favored groups. In these cases, policymakers simply have determined that squatter’s rights are politically expedient.
For example, in the United States in the nineteenth century, squatting nearly became a sort of federally approved welfare program. As explained in detail in John Suval’s book Dangerous Ground: Squatters, Statemen, and the antebellum Rupture of American Democracy, Jacksonians and other factions of the Democratic party in Congress actively supported widespread squatting throughout the American frontier. At the time, squatting was employed as a means of stealing land from Indians, Mexicans, and any other group deemed undesirable by pro-squatter activists in Congress. In this way, squatting served as a type of social policy. When officials sided with squatters over the rightful owners, this would essentially transfer wealth from the out-of-favor group (i.e., Mexicans and Indians) to the favored group of Anglo Americans.
In other cases, the mechanism was slightly more complex. Often, the federal government would seize land from its rightful owners (i.e., Indians) first, and then auction the land off as a means of increasing revenue for the federal government. Pro-squatter policies, however, encouraged squatters to occupy the land illegally rather than pay for it at auction. Once the squatters were in place and refused to leave, Democrats in Congress would then pass bills handing this land over to the squatters permanently. This, of course, shifted federal revenue collection away from settlers—who got free land—and placed the revenue burden on others.
Democrat policymakers supported these squatters because it was assumed that upon receiving these political favors, the squatters would thereafter vote for pro-squatter Democrats as political payback.
Modern Urban Squatting
In the twentieth century, support for squatters came from typically leftwing activists who favored squatting as a means of providing housing for low-income individuals and households. During the Great Depression, of course, squatting became commonplace in many areas, although few of these squatters were able to establish true ownership via adverse possession proceedings in court.
Squatter activism again revived during the 1990s, as in the case of a standoff between city officials and squatters in the East Village in 1995. Again, in this case, squatters only ultimately won a temporary victory and were eventually evicted.
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
Today, squatter’s rights continue to be a perennial issue of contention, and it’s easy to see why cases like that of Adele Andaloro strike a chord with so many Americans. Even for law-abiding non-homeowners can imagine what a nightmare it would be to inherit a house from one’s dead parents only to have that house seized by trespassing squatters. Indeed, it is easy to see how a middle-class family, having lost use of a home in this fashion, could face immediate financial ruin.
It is notable that the squatter movements of the 1930s, the 1990s, and today are attempts at urban squatting in contrast to rural and agricultural squatting in times past. Rural squatting tended to be lower-density, and property boundaries were less clear. Moreover, rural squatters in many cases tended to keep to less productive parcels of land, and the presence of squatters on one part of an owner’s land did not necessarily force the owner from the property overall.
Urban and suburban land is something else entirely. Urban and suburban squatters are more likely to impose a much larger and more immediate cost on the rightful owners. When urban and suburban squatters take over a home in these areas, the owner is typically unable to use the property at all, and the owner may be rendered homeless himself.
Moreover, when homeless trespassers attempt to take advantage of squatter’s rights in urban and suburban homes, there is no true confusion over ownership or over property lines. These squatters do not appear anywhere on the title, and were never long-term residents.
Even worse, some cities like New York City have greatly liberalized squatter’s rights to allow for trespassers to claim squatter’s rights on a much shorter timeline than what is historically known in cases of adverse possession. Or, in some jurisdictions, such as Atlanta, officials are unwilling or unable to evict trespassers in a timely fashion, and trespassers become de factor squatters within a period of weeks or months. Indeed, modern squatting in suburban and urban homes is increasingly unlike anything that would historically be described as true adverse possession.
Yet, squatter’s rights continue to enjoy support from several corners of the American political landscape. In modern contexts, pro-squatter activists tend to be anti-capitalists who seek to use adverse possession as a means of promoting “equity” and punishing property owners viewed as an oppressive rentier class. These activists know these squatters have no true claim to the property under traditional definitions of squatter’s rights. This is clear in the modern world where ownership of real property involves multiple layers of documentation.
In most cases, modern use of squatter’s rights amounts to nothing more than defrauding legitimate property owners and seizing their wealth.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.