(The Center Square) – With instances of squatting sharply on the rise across the state, an Illinois lawmaker is sponsoring a bill that would give more protections to home owners from squatters.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, introduced a bill that would give law enforcement the power to remove trespassers from properties where the owner is able to establish legal ownership. The measure has already passed in the Illinois Senate.
“This is about correcting a bad public policy and making clarity between a squatter and a tenant,” Ford told The Center Square. “Squatters don’t have rights. Tenants have rights. And we have to clear up our law in Illinois to distinguish between the two so that the process of getting a squatter out is swift and they don’t have to be treated like a tenant. Where tenants have rights and landlords may have disputes with tenants and have to go to court to get them out, there should be no court that determines whether the squatters’ out.”
Ford told the story of a family of South Side constituents who recently faced squatters that moved into their home and refused to leave after presenting fraudulent mortgage documents showing them as new owners.
As Chicago police now investigate the matter and with rents across the state continuing to rise, Ford is hoping to see Springfield do the heavy lifting.
“I think that if we pass the law and the governor signs it, it’s going to relieve some of that burden,” he said. “I think that it’s unfortunate that the times that we’re living in people take advantage of a system and people steal. This is theft of real estate. You have sophisticated squatters out here taking advantage of the law, real homeless people don’t do that.”
Even if his bill becomes law, Ford admitted he thinks more will still need to be done to completely erase the problem.
“I think that there’s going to still need to be more discussions on how to prevent it,” he said. “The number one way to prevent squatters is for landlords to protect their properties and to secure them so no one could get in. They need to make sure that they know if someone is on their property as quickly as possible so that they get to the police and say that they’re trespassers. That’s important because once they get in, they change the locks, they start getting utilities in their name and then they become legal tenants.”
Ford said he’s also working with local utility companies to put a code on each property that would need to be presented to workers anytime someone seeks to have services turned on in their name.
