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[Music] welcome to the dear real to YouTube channel I'm John shank founder and managing broker of dearwood realy in St Louis Missouri what do you think about squatters are you even familiar with the term it's kind of strange I I was thinking about it today and you've got you've got two kind of issues you got the people that just break into houses and then you have people that overstay leases or there's a tenant dispute land tenant dispute something like that um but I was first you know aware of this of this issue um well back with my property management days we had one uh case but the person wasn't really a squatter they just didn't pay their they just didn't pay their rent and uh they were professionals and uh and they were good they were really good they they got us and uh then I about a year ago there was a story out of Philadelphia where an agent had sold a house and uh someone that was a sovereign citizen decided that they uh actually owned the house and they they decided to stay there uh until they were finally removed but it took a long time and it damaged the house and it was a high dollar house and that's one of the themes that I'm seeing now with these reports in the news are these these houses that are like nice houses that people are just either breaking into into and just staying in or um I I don't really think that the over overstaying of the lease is the same um the same thing I think that's just a bad tenant but anyway uh we're going to go over one of the more famous stories now this uh I know there's been videos made about it and I know that YouTube has been pretty strong in throwing them out so um I will try to not get the video you know removed um by not mentioning names and not um you know basically not mentioning names as as best I can and then this is more of a holistic approach we're not just talking about this particular case we we're talking more about the subject in general hopefully that will get me where I need to be now uh I am on Rumble I will be on X when they get their videos straightened out and I am on locals.com so if I do get booted from YouTube for some bizarre reason you know at least you can find me somewhere that being said let's get into it it says serial squatter refusing to move out of a $2 million Seattle property is also accused of failing to pay rent on another house for two years despite earning $400,000 a year with his wife at the time now look the I mean I just just to start you know I think I think there is something to be said for the house in this condition is isn't a a very nice neighborhood it's got one it's in one of the better school districts they're not making these this isn't making the news if it's in the middle of the hood okay so I just want to put that out there that it's it's the nature of what houses are being squatted in that's the problem and again I do make a distinction between a rental uh dispute a landlord tent dispute and an actual squatter and this is let me just tell you the difference again just so we can can go over if you intentionally break into a house that you don't think is occupied then you are a squatter okay and you stay there if you are a tenant that moves into a house and you get into a disagreement with the landlord that is not the same so that's just where I'm at on that so I I I already don't like the way this is starting but it's it's going to be a mess anyway so let's get into it it says a Serial squatter refusing to leave a $2 million home in Seattle pulled the same trick on his previous landlords failing to pay rent for two years and costing them up to $200,000 it is alleged Now understand like I just said in the beginning these people that do this this they're good they know the laws okay they they don't do this because they're um ignorant of the law they're doing it to flout the fact that they know the law better than anybody else uh so these these are not innocent people okay that it's just not that way so says uh the fell has sparked a fury in the upmarket neighborhood of Belleview after squatting for almost a year in a five bedroom property who and then the owner has claimed in legal filings that the tenant owes him around 8 $80,000 now we're going to see different numbers thrown around we're going to see different dates thrown around this story is not crystal clear in any way it says it led to an ugly confrontation between the pair and a protest of around 200 residents demanding the conman cough or get out the fellow's family is alleged to have moved straight into the person's the owner's property from a previous squat nearby where they used similar delaying tactics to avoid paying rent of around $4,000 a month on a three-bedroom $1.3 million home now look I'm in the midwest a $1 million home is very expensive um ours you know well it was I guess prices have gone up significantly but anyway it's a big deal it's a big deal like if you have neighbors in that in that neighborhood not they're not happy about this situation um so it says the fellow was earning a combined income of $48,000 a year working for a medical consultancy when they moved in and then it's according to a proof of income lower seen by The Daily Mail and says they lost their jobs shortly thereafter but the landlord claims that the tenants continue living a lavish life for in his home doing barbecues buying new cars living in the best neighborhood and sending his kids to to the best schools and then the quote is whereas the poor landlords they're doing multiple jobs to support the mortgage of this house uh the tenant has no shame and doesn't care about Society well this is a very fascinating um argument one it makes it seem like the tenant is spending money on other things when he should be spending it on the rent well maybe that's true right maybe that's true or maybe it's not maybe it's none of my business it's it's really not material to the fact that the person isn't paying the rent now you could say here's what here's what happened when I used to do single family Property Management 99% unless they were scammers 99% of the people that didn't pay their rent didn't pay their rent because they had no money to do so or they would have they were honorable people that you know either they lost their job something happened there was an emergency and it's just didn't work out okay but then there's that you know 1% and those guys are professionals and they know how to work the system and they use it to their advantage so it says the extraordinary R comes as thousands of American Property Owners struggle with a broken legal system that is allowing squatters to live rentree and up Market homes without consequences I don't think that's true I don't think the Uproar is being caused by that I don't think it's about the brok legal system the legal system is broken obviously but I don't think that's why this is making the news and we'll go into it a a little bit later um so the tenant a father of two rented the landlord's home in the summer of 2022 but has since only made paid for one month's rent out of his own pocket relying on legal aid until May of 2023 when the payment stopped entirely now we're going to go into that in another article let's just see if that holds up but the squatter's freeloading data backs almost 4 years according to the Declaration signed by the local real estate agent in her statement uh this woman that's the real estate agent claims that a couple she had sold a 1.3 million bellev property to contacted her in September of 2020 complaining that they had rented it to the now tenant of the other property uh but he was no longer paying now why you would call you a real estate agent when you've made a deal I don't exactly know I get calls all the time for things says the fellow was served with a 90-day eviction no which he ignored but it then took until March of 2022 to get a court date in the summer of that year for him to finally be evicted now during that time we can't talk about on YouTube without getting thrown off YouTube um there was you couldn't throw people out of uh um you couldn't throw people out of their rentals it's a terrible thing not that I want people thrown out but if you have no you know if you just spend the laws it's just terrible there was my cough that just shows up sorry it says ultimately the landlords lost two years of rental income worth about $100,000 500 $5,000 in unpaid utilities $20,000 in repairs and around $100,000 in the value of the property once they were finally able to sell it so painful says the couple is still recovering from the financial and emotional damage caused by the tenant and are unwilling to speak about it so then uh the landlord go or the the real estate agent goes on to say that not paying the rent utilities promising rent money within the week promising to move none of which is true is evidenced by the fact that they refused to vacate the property property and she says I can't understand how this how such behavior is allowed to continue well it's a breakdown of the rule of law but we're going to get into that too because other people don't think that way says she said the family left the house in a wreck but her clients did not recover a penny of the money owed to them because they did not pursue the case any further and that's just it I mean you're already down $100,000 or more do you really want to be even down further uh with the chance of losing the tenant or the landlord says the case did not appear on the background check which allowed to repeat the behavior a lot of people say well if you just get a good background check then you won't have these issues well there's these things called cash for keys where the you extort the landlord uh and say like look if you pay me five grand I'll go away that happens all the time um you can get you can get the eviction filed in a different name um it's just it's just a mess says the uh eviction proceedings the landlord fired the eviction proceedings when the tenant first started missing payments but the housing Justice project a non profit stepped in on the tenants behalf applying for a stay on the eviction and paying some of the back rent the housing Justice project even paid a 3-months advance on the rent to give the family time to move out but when the three months were up in May of 2023 the landlord said the family still did not leave and they started missing rent payments again despite this he claims that the tenants have bought two Mazda 3S which retailed upwards of $20,000 that are parked in front of his home it's like so what what he's trying to say the argument is is well they have money for other things but not to pay the rent that's what they're trying to go with so it says the landlord provided the dailymail.com with an income verification letter signed by the general manager of a medical consultancy uh firm which said that uh the tenants are Partners in the business and receive an average monthly income including bonuses and commissions equaling 20 $22,000 a month and $112,000 a month respectively the letter added that the couple are currently exiting the corporate housing that was provided by the company so look if you own a business and you're using your rent payments as corporate housing it's great and all unless you don't have the money it also it also makes you wonder like was it the company that applied for the lease it's just weird and then it says finally says that uh the landlord and his owner organized a protest outside the home on Saturday with around 200 people attending holding placards en chanting no pay no stay so now we're picketing a residence that's the best way to do this I don't know that's weird so I looked it up I put in IAL squatter this was the number one article but it was a month ago and there's a lot of it okay but it's also not like it's not the same one and it it's not it's not like new news it's from like a month ago like like apparently now we're not doing squatting so then this is an absolute leftist organization here that's written this article and I thought we should go over it because it's important to like look at other people's point of views on things and see if we agree um I am I don't think I'm a leftist or on the right I I'm I'm not in I'm not independent either I don't know what I am I've not not figured that out yet but anyway it says landlord lives matter protest against tenant may have been illegal okay so we're going to go with the protest was illegal may have been you know there's a lot of things I do daily that may be illegal and I don't even know what the rules are anymore and they they only apply to certain people I mean it's getting really bad but anyway it says buckle up it's time for another Sensational nightmare tenant story RI whipped up by right-wing media personalities so apparently only the right- Wingers are noticing that people are squatting I mean we we're already to the point where we don't think it's squatting we think it's a landlord tent dispute it's not somebody that just broke into a house and is staying there it's somebody that was given the keys to the house and is now there so again we don't agree with that already but a story whipped up is it is it does that make it not true while my tenant enjoys a relaxed lifestyle buys news cars and celebrates with barbecues I continue to struggle to pay my bills and double mortgages the landlord said in a in a uh in an interview now look it doesn't seem fair it also doesn't matter life isn't fair you're choosing to work to struggle to pay two mortgages and double bills and I mean that's that's on you you made these you decided to rent a home out to someone you decided to do that for whatever reason and that's at the end of the day it's on you it says this month they apparently decided it was time for an escalation an associate turned into next door to promote a protest outside the home where the tenant lives with his wife and four children now there were two children in the other article so like I don't know if two just showed up or what's going on saying that he'd been suffering tremendously in inviting city council senators and other community leaders to join our neighbor to protest against non-paying renters who refus to vacate the property despite an eviction order so not a not a squatter so this many will find the spectacle of a landlord calling a rally outside of his tenant's home absurd and gross regardless of the details of the situation okay man I got to cough again so just look at the statement again many will find the spectacle of a landlord calling a rally outside his tenants home this woman who wrote this article has assigned ownership of the property to the tenant wow watch this protesting at a resence generally raises tricky issues of ethics and legality okay how so when the target is a public fure or figure whose position and power allowed them to ignore public protest this may be the only way to quite literally bring home the harm their actions caused so it's okay to Target a public official at their home and that doesn't raise any sort of tricky issues of Ethics or legality it's just if it's a private citizen aend in the middle of eviction proceedings at the risk of becoming homeless is clearly a different case actions aiming to drive people out of a community have a much uglier history you know what history is ugly it is get over it it's all I have to say it's bad it's bad we can only we can only work to to do better but to use a historical justification for why it's not why it's why it's not okay to protest at a house but it is okay to protest at the house if the person is a political figure is just Bonkers and addition to his own oh so then they go into well what is it really a poor landlord so in addition to his own $1.3 million home not far away the landlord orders at least one other property under his own name a $1.1 million house to Doors Down from this tenants address so because the landlord owns more than one properties now all of a sudden it's not a poor landlord it says these are other sub subsidiary llc's own one other rental property and have been partied to at least three multi-million dollar property purchase and sales in the past few years two of them demo and rebuilds and one a straight flip it says the extense of the landlord's Financial in interest in or profits from all this real estate activity is not a matter of public record and I don't think it should be but this history at least suggests that we should take the struggling small landlord stick with a grain of salt this is very fascinating this is a person that doesn't really understand business they think that uh they think that every business every businessman makes a profit every business exploits its workers [Music] um totally totally disconnected from reality um while many businessmen are successful there are also many businessmen who are not and the fact that especially if you look at a development of property if you're a developer your number one thing to stay in business is to be able to conserve Capital it's it's the number one thing very hard and then I mean it's just it's it's written I mean this this is it to me this is immaterial it doesn't matter if the tenant is um has it here it it goes both ways it doesn't matter if the tenant has enough money to pay the rent and chooses not to and it doesn't matter if the landlord has 50 other properties and is um making money off of his Investments neither of those two things are to issues relative to this person hasn't paid the rent on time the law is not working on behalf of the land owner and that is a problem tell there is to it says whether leading a protest outside a distressed renter's home is appro again it's not the distressed renter's home it's the landlord's home and he leases it out for the enjoyment of the tenant and then for that he gets a amount of money whether it's appropriate contact for someone in this position would make an interesting topic of discussion at the commissioner's next meeting so what this is is this fellow the landlord is is part of a a political group um and whatever you can read the article I got the link in the description below the tenant received panamic rental assistance through the housing Justice project covering his family rent from October 2022 through May 2023 he now is about 45,000 unpaid rent now look why I mean when you think about housing Justice project don't you think like oh they're helping poor people who are being exploited by sophisticated landlords and organizations that's what I think it's not to pay a $4,000 mon rent in one of the pricer sections of of Seattle right and then he goes and talks about now the port tenant says ironically he says the publicity made it harder for him to leave the rental property I'm trying to keep the kids in the same school the video made it difficult for me to find a new place to move let alone get a job locally look you're mooching off of the landlord now I understand that if you're a communist you don't believe in uh private property like no property is is private I get that it says King County Superior Court is indeed moving more slowly than usual but that's because the court is dealing with an avalanche of evictions that's not acceptable see that's the thing it's like we're making exceptions under the law why just do your job T says the landlord and his lawyers have only themselves to blame if things are moving slowly it's not a broken system it 100% is it's their broken approach to it they didn't want to take the proper steps or give a fair chance to negotiate a repayment now we're negotiating a repayment plan you think the 10's going to pay that they were cutting quarters to get it done as soon as possible and that's why we got to this point no we got to this point because you didn't pay the rent and then you used a a public and NGO to uh to keep you in the house because you're smart it says back to the protest outside Kim Kim home whether you think it was appalling or Justified it may have been illegal again you walk across the street anymore you've broken the law somehow tenant is now dealing with the a aftermash the protest it's not easy now have people calling anonymously using nasty language and hanging up most people attend the protest werning from the neighborhood it's an exclusive neighborhood like I'm not I'm probably not allowed there as just a young you know normal uh middle class working man probably not allowed there which makes it even more funny if they wanted to have a rally for landlord's rights they could have just as EAS had as a neighborhood park having in front of the tenant's house again not the tenant's house tenant does not own that house serves no purpose except harassment then it goes into the the vigilante justice and things like this it says Washington laws on forcable entry and detainer are interpreted to prohibit landlords from using Menace intimidation or forc to house to tenant or occupant of a property regardless of that person's right to be there which is wrong which is wrong and so the lawyer who's the spokesperson for the uh group that's helping the tenant says he feels like this is a slide away from the rule of law also using the law as a weapon to uh to keep a landlord from uh getting their property back when the tenant's not paying is also a slide away from the rule of law actually the the rule of law has been slid away from so badly it's it's really a case of people either follow the rules that they're aware of and they [Music] try or you know it's crazy well now this I don't know if this would work but there is this thing that I saw in California called the squatter Hunters what you do is you write a lease to these people they move in next to the squatter have every legal right to be there they have a lease and then they just annoy the hell out of the the the tenant and then they leave in theory I don't know seems like an idea let's get into the questions for tonight sorry my voice is scratchy and stuff and I got a cough it says what has triggered the recent media focus on Squires I think I think it's it's it's because houses become unaffordable I mean if you're young if you're a young couple just starting out probably can't afford a home at at these prices with combination of the prices and the mortgage rate very very frustrating and so when you see people just breaking the law and getting away with it now again I make a distinction between squatters and ATT tenants that have overstayed their lease or have broken their lease and understand I don't think landlords are always perfect I don't think tenants are always perfect perfect I'm just looking at this from the perspective of why has this become an issue today I don't think it's right wing media I think is that houses are actually just so unaffordable and when you see people just you know literally break into homes okay it's it's a bad deal um how do current tenant laws in cities like SLE impact the Avail the ability of landlords to manage Squires well I can tell you what's going to happen um when you have these mom and popop landlords say they own two or three properties they're not sophisticated enough over time to be able to go without rent for months and months at a time so they will get out of it or they will charge more for their their property since they probably won't be able to get more for their property because it's kind of market-based uh they'll end up selling out and these large large corporations that manage hundreds and hundreds of doors or hundreds of thousands of doors will move in and they will definitely have a team of lawyers that just sit at the courthouse all day long and file the paperwork necessary to to take care of the problem that's what you're going to do at the end of the day that's what's going to happen it's because uh it's because they didn't follow the um the courts didn't follow the the they didn't take care of the people that were the Mom and Pops it's all there is to it it says can squatter's rights be justified in today's H housing crisis I don't think it can ever be justified squatter's rights now let's define that if you break into a house and you're living in it you're a squatter you have no rights it's not your house your tent landlord having a dis it's up to the courts to decide if if who's Justified with what and it needs to go that way I will say this if you have an eviction order from a court and the sheriff has backed up six months something should be done on the government level to get that straightened out much much faster it says what practical Solutions can landlords Implement to prevent squatting well you know if if they're going to break breaking the house to to to move in on a squatting then I don't think there's a whole lot you can do that they're just breaking the law as far as for the tenants you're supposed to be able to screen for them again these people are very very sophisticated and these these particular scamers are also wordsmiths I mean they will just talk your ear right off and they will get in so I don't know it says how should po policy makers balance the rights of landlords with the needs of tenants and squs there's no question if private property is a thing then you need to protect it it needs to be protected by the courts if it's not then uh then they've already taken care of that they're already making it ridiculous there should be no allowance for squatters at all it says what role does the community have in addressing issues related to squatters and housing instability I don't even understand housing instability stronger laws are needed um the Community should should speak out I don't know that I would protest at someone's house I think that was a a spectacle uh that's where I'm at um long video tonight sorry been wanting to do this for four or five months finally got out there let me know what you think hope you stayed for the whole thing if not I understand I'm going to head out thank you for watching thank you for listening and I'll catch you show the next one