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“Sure, I’ll overturn it. For money.” -judge, probably

Fuck, when you put it like that, it almost sounds like it was planned that way. What a funny cowinky-dink.

It's free labour!

Bonds are paid into court. They don't go directly into the landlord's pocket. Also nobody gets evicted without notice (and understand that notice is a term of art in this context--plenty of people get evicted without knowing about it or being actually made aware, but every state has a requirement that you have to do one of a limited number of things in order to provide notice to a tenant of an eviction).

This is a shitty law, but please don't make stuff up or draw assumptions to pretend it's worse than it actually is.

The problem this state (via the landlords' lobbying for this change) is trying to fix is the scenario in which an evicted tenant gets a sympathetic judge in a jurisdiction with a long docket backlog and basically gets to squat in the property rent-free for however long they can stretch out the litigation. If you're just now becoming familiar with the value of litigants dragging out litigation, well, welcome to 2024.

I know social media despises landlords (and there's very good reason to revile institutional real estate hoarders), but there are good public policy reasons to not want people squatting in properties rent-free, one of which is that if the landlord can't get a non-paying tenant off the property through legal means, they will pursue non-legal means instead. There are much better ways to accomplish this than the way TN has here, but shotgun evictions are something we'd really like to avoid.

Coming up with 20,000 dollars in a week isn't a middle finger to squatters, it's a complete lock out of the justice system to anyone who isn't rich enough to be a land lord themselves.

This is peak, "the justice system protects everyone equally" bullshit.

How about we just do away with landlords entirely and make every property by default mortgagable so that apartment dwellers at minimum wage can still recoup some of their monthly housing costs when selling the apartment. There's no reason this can't be done. Most cheap old low-end apartments are worth relatively little (dependent on location and other factors, but still). If the market was flooded with them due to redistribution of shelter and an end to landlording, the prices would drop much further, potentially making theoretical down payments comparable with the first month's rent + damage deposit. With the added bonus that no one steals your monthly payments. Housing co-ops are also great. There's just no reason for landlords to exist. Shelter is a human right, and there's no reason for a renting class to exist except to serve the interests of private landlords and enable the existence of a permanently impoverished working class.

I don’t think most people think “oh, some dude signing a contract and then violating it is super cool.” I think most people here realize that the working-class landlord who is renting out a single unit for a little extra cash is basically a unicorn these days and that the vast majority of rental units are owned by people and corporations who rent as their primary or sole source of income; and that the stories of renters deliberately destroying rental units are foregrounded by these large scale landlords as a tactic to erode public sympathy for renters. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, any time you have a system that can be exploited people will exploit it. What I am saying is that these situations happen far less often than ones like the linked article describes, where a tenant was evicted because they were told the incorrect court date.

A tenant who falls behind on rent isn't a squatter they are still a tenant and normal procedures already allow for removing the tenant in a reasonable time frame. The issue that obtains some places is that courts are too poorly funded and over burdened to deal with issues in a timely fashion.

A squatter is someone who moves in without paying. This gets ugly when as above court issus applies and squatter situations get in line with normal eviction.

WA instituted an expedited process that allows for removal of folks who were never tenants with just police so this doesn't happen.

That is a smart solution to actual squatting fully funding whomever handles your eviction cases is another.

If you want to take it to the next level look at Finland who almost eliminated homelessness by housing people who are temporarily in a bad way and Europeans generally providing support for those with health problems.

People who fall behind usually aren't stealing from the landlord and celebrating they are usually falling into a financial hole and living every day in increasing stress as they scramble for a solution. Ask me how I know.

If you fault squatters in the midst of a homelessness crisis where upwards of 20 houses are left vacant for every unhoused person, you are either a landlord, or you have been oriented by the landowning class to ignore the massive economic and societal advantage that landlords have. To say that the issue comes down to squatters, and not to the hedge funds that are buying up streets-worth of housing at a time, is an affront to working-class people everywhere who are struggling more and more to obtain a home.

I say fuck yeah to squatters. Based. That is the "risk" that comes with being a landlord, and sometimes they strike out, so they can get fucked.

Except for the fact that most of the people who can't afford rent can't afford to move to another state either.

Plus there's the ones who can't leave because of family or work.

If moving both yourself and who/what you need with you was free, almost nobody would live in non-Nashville Tennessee.