By Jordan Gerard | Arizona Capitol Times (abridged)
Tim Beaubian, senior director of government affairs at Arizona REALTORS Association, said the bipartisan support of this bill this year shows what an impact this is going to be for the state of Arizona and that private property rights are a bedrock.
Goldilocks won’t be squatting for long in any Arizona homes after a new law takes effect.
Sen. Wendy Rogers made the fairy tale comparison herself at a press conference on June 1 after her Senate Bill 1426 was signed into law by Gov. Katie Hobbs. The new regulations intend to make it easier for property owners to evict squatters faster.
“It’s like Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” she said. “This is when Goldilocks goes into a home, enters the bears’ home without permission when they’re out. She eats their porridge, sits in and breaks their chairs, sleeps in their beds, making her the classic intruder squatter.”
It’s what happened to D’Andrea Turner and her then-husband Keith. D’Andrea had been traveling back and forth to Michigan to take care of her elderly mother and also recovering from surgery after an aneurysm. Keith was a long-haul trucker on the road and when he came back, he discovered squatters in their home.
They tried to remove the squatters, but they kept coming back and eventually, the Turners found out their identities were stolen from documents in their home and their home had been fraudulently sold. Affidavits and forms had been notarized and submitted through Maricopa County and the sale wasn’t stopped until the squatters tried to cash the check in the Turner’s names multiple times but were unsuccessful, according to previous media reports.
Turner said the hardest thing was the identity theft and the property being defrauded, plus losing irreplaceable items in their home, such as photos of her children, a teddy bear and computers. They raised their children and lived in their home for over 12 years, she said.
Turner said she’s grateful to Rogers for getting the bill passed. In the Turners’ case, two people were eventually charged with identity theft, forgery and fraudulent schemes. Despite that progress, the Turners are still sorting out the mess with their insurance company.
A squatter is different from a trespasser. Whereas trespassers usually leave after they’re told, squatters can use tactics to make it look like they live at the property or create a false lease to try to prove they have a rental agreement.
The law requires the court to issue a writ of restitution immediately after the court signs any judgement against an unauthorized person, according to the bill language. It outlines conditions that constitute an eviction lawsuit, such as an unauthorized person unlawfully occupying the property and the property owner has directed the person to leave. Another condition is the person did not have a prior verbal or written agreement to cohabitate with the property owner at a residential property.
The new law would not apply or modify the rights and remedies available to landlords and tenants as prescribed by the Arizona Residential Landlord Tenant Act. The law will not affect current or former tenants, immediate family members or people who had a verbal or written agreement to live on the property with the owner.
The law will take effect 90 days after it was signed. This was Rogers’ third attempt to get the bill passed. The bill originally came to Rogers from a constituent who is a real estate attorney and told her it’s a prevalent problem.
The game changer this year was an early start in collaboration and most notably, the constables’ support, along with Realtors, she said, and added she was pleasantly surprised by the amount of bipartisan support the bill received.
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