How to squat a house in Detroit

**jeanofarc** · May-10-10, 08:03 PM

A lot of good points here. It is not illegal to enter and stay in an empty building that is "open and notorious" meaning not locked up. After 15 succesful years you can apply for the title free and clear and it does not need to cost a ton, just filing fees. You can also have all the utilities turned on in your name if you are a bit creative.
I'm actually working on learning the legality of this and looking for someone who wants to help put the info together so that more buildings can become homes around Detroit. Anyone want to help?

**skyl4rk** · May-11-10, 08:07 AM

You could file a quit claim deed from someone [[anyone) to yourself and get the property taxes switched into your name. That will not give you clear title but will help in proving adverse possession 15 years from now. Assuming you pay the property taxes and assessments, it will also prevent the property from going into tax foreclosure. Being on the city tax rolls will also assist in getting utilities connected. If the owner is uninterested and has essentially abandoned the property, they may not notice or care that they no longer receive tax bills [[they may be relieved). It is probably best not to contact the owner in any way.

In order to claim adverse possession, you would have to openly live in a house for 15 years without a challenge from the true owner. If the true owner challenges your occupancy, or gives you permission to live there, you no longer can use adverse possession.

When property is as cheap as it is today, you are better off buying from the owner than trying to fool around with setting yourself up for adverse possession. If the true owner cannot be found, a little documentation work today may benefit your legal position 15 years from now.

You can pay property taxes even if you are not the owner of record. Just show up at the Treasurers office and ask what the taxes are for that property, then pay cash. You do not need to do a quit claim in order to pay taxes.

If you feel the owner has abandoned any interest in the property, you should be aware that the City may try to get control over the property, for demolition, or as part of a redevelopment project. Paying taxes, occupying the property and keeping it in habitable condition should prevent the City from trying to take the property unless it suddenly becomes valuable for some reason, such as being on the footprint of some proposed development. However, unless you are the owner of record, you will not receive notice of any city actions against the property, so that is another reason to become owner of record, even if you are just using a meaningless quit claim deed from someone who has no interest in the property. At least your name will be on the city's tax roll and records. Don't mess with a house owned by the City, adverse possession will not work and you are likely to be thrown out by the cops and treated like a homeless person.

Probably the best way to look at squatting is to consider the property tax and home maintenance costs as if they were a rent payment. If the true owner tells you to leave, you will have some time period to pack up and go, based on tenant law. If you have not destroyed the house, and you go peaceably when the owner demands, you have not really damaged the owner in any way that you could be sued or prosecuted [[assuming it is truly an abandoned house). You could offer to rent the house from the true owner.

**jbd441** · May-11-10, 10:48 AM

Seems like an awful lot to go through just to squat. Does the Wayne County or the City of Detroit have tax sales? Can someone purchase a tax certificate and after a certain amount of time, can't the certificate owner force auction of the house? It seems like this would be an easier solution than living in a home for 15 years.

Also it seems rather dangerous to turn electricity on in home by yourself.

Just my 2 cents.

**REL** · May-13-10, 09:15 AM

http://www.freep.com/article/2010051...oit-house-fire

It's not "squatting", it's more like "tresspassing."

Besides, I sit. It's more ladylike.

**wolverine** · May-13-10, 12:54 PM

^ The electrical hookup was illegal, but no one declared their occupation as a violation.

**slick** · June-30-10, 08:56 AM

Just do it!

Want a mansion? Just take one
'Luxury squatters' take over vacant houses and declare themselves owners. In Seattle, one family moved into a $3.3 million place.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/article.aspx?post=1776245&GT1=33006

**bailey** · June-30-10, 09:21 AM

ok.. just to clear up the massive amount of misinformation on this topic and not as any form of legal advice or encouragement.

In Michigan, the elements of adverse possession are: actual, visible, open, notorious, exclusive, and uninterrupted possession of the property that was hostile to the owner and under cover of a claim of right for a fifteen-year period. Rozmarek v Plamondon, 419 Mich 287, 295; 351 NW2d 558 [[1984).

So, in order to actually gain title to the property through adverse possession, you can't simply hide in the property and hope the owner never notices. In order to establish adverse possession, the true owner must have actual knowledge of the adverse possession, or alternatively, the possession must be so notorious as to raise the presumption to the world that the possessor claims ownership. Basically , you must move in and make it your own for the statutory period. Which is why it so rarely works.

also, filing a fake quit claim deed is slander of title. You are, in essence, publishing a false statement about the property. This is a felony and you'll owe the rightful owner some cash.

600.2907a Violation of MCL 565.25; liability to owner of encumbered property; penalty.
Sec. 2907a.
[[1) A person who violates section 25 of chapter 65 of the Revised Statutes of 1846, being section 565.25 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, by encumbering property through the recording of a document without lawful cause with the intent to harass or intimidate any person is liable to the owner of the property encumbered for all of the following:
[[a) All of the costs incurred in bringing an action under section 25 of chapter 65 of the Revised Statutes of 1846, including actual attorney fees.
[[b) All damages the owner of the property may have sustained as a result of the filing of the encumbrance.
[[c) Exemplary damages.
[[2) A person who violates section 25 of chapter 65 of the Revised Statutes of 1846, by encumbering property through the recording of a document without lawful cause with the intent to harass or intimidate any person is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 3 years or a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both.

**DanFromDetroit** · June-30-10, 11:30 AM

While this is a strictly anecdotal story I still feed the need to share. An elderly friend of my parents who lived somewhere in East English Village [[Harvard I think) had some major surgery and moved into assisted living for several months. She had her granddaughter take care of her house in the interim [[mowing the lawn, paying bills etc). All of her bills were paid on time and everything was fine during the fall but as winter neared the house was all but shuttered for several months. It was not "in neglect" but simply unoccupied. The mail went through a slot in the door but that was the only activity for some time. Well long story short she was on the mend and her family went down to make sure her house was ready for her return & lo and behold a family had moved in several months prior w/o their knowledge. They were very "uninterested" in leaving and the frightened suburbanites were forced to call police. When the cops showed up they were told that "some white guy" had rented them the house but had no documentation to prove it or a name or a number etc. Even so the police were for some reason unable to get them to leave. The situation was only finally solved when 4 months later they sold the house [[for almost nothing) to a neighbor and had their mother move in up north with them. I hope I didn't forget any key elements but I was under the impression based on what I've heard that squatters have way more rights than it seems. The cops can't just make them move w/o notice at which point I'm sure they would tear up the house for anything of value and destroy the rest. Moral of the story - don't just assume that a house is fine when going away for an extended absence.

**jeanofarc** · January-03-11, 04:44 PM

Bailey,
Not to spread massive amounts of misinformation here, but the section you cited, http://www.legislature.mi.gov/[[S[[0r5...ame=mcl-565-25
talks about recording encumbrances, which are liens and such attached to a property, not deeds. That is why they talk about doing it to harass, think of like mobsters and credit card companies, not sincere debt and there are so many exceptions that a loophole could probably be found. But that matters not, because slapping a lien is not going to help the Adverse Possessor.
Here is the part about exchanging deeds; read through this carefully and see that the laws are very lax here, civil matters and as long as you've got 2 witnesses and a notary, you are set, as far as the law goes. your seeing eye dog can deliver the deed for recording; because all the proof is in the 2 witnesses and the notary that legally confirms it all with a stamp. the recording of the deed is the law, first one to record gets it. No matter if there is a break in the chain, MERS took care of that already and it is no shock to a judge. They want people in homes too. If there is no one to come forth in all those years,typically no one shows up in court and the judge grant you the property. Even if they do, all the improvements and taxes and assessments you did are owed to you in order to turn over the property.
Indecently you still need to quiet title after the 15 years, 10 if you bought the property off a tax sale and 5 if you are on any kind of deed, provable or not. Also you must pay the taxes or it will go to the county after 3 years and they don't have to play by the rules that the private sector does. I would not touch any government owned property except to garden on, personally because I wouldn't want to wake up to the house shaking.
MCL on deeds, pretty long, enjoy it.
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/[[S[[aoi...me=mcl-chap565

**bailey** · January-04-11, 08:34 AM

Filing a false deed...as you apparently are advocating... IS an encumbrance upon the property...it IS a "filing a document without lawful cause" no matter how many witnesses and tax stamps you have, it's still fraud if the rightful owner of the property is not involved in the transaction. I mean are you serious!?! I suggest you try to file a deed for your neighbor's home in the manner you discuss above and see how far that gets you.

**skyl4rk** · August-23-11, 07:09 AM

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110...ons-in-Detroit

**SWMAP** · August-23-11, 08:49 AM

This article, coupled with Mitch Album's Sunday proposal to just let working poor have empty houses in Detroit, is very alarming. Some people say that squatters are better than nothing. Working poor are better than nothing. Very naive. Working poor mostly leads to no maintainance. You see that all around right now. If you have to be given a house, will you have a lawn mower? Will you be able to have the mature trees trimmed that brush on your neighbor's roof? Will you have to move all your relatives and friends in to help you with the bills? Will you have a yard sale every day? Will you eventually hook up an illegal connection? I have seen it all.

As to just letting squatters in: I had two girls squat next door to me. They couldn't get along with their mother. They just plopped themselves down and brought any number of real boyfriends and other guys along. They said they were in the Latin Counts and pretty soon they said they "ran the street." Their boyfriends hooked up electricity and gas. They couldn't get water because City shuts off pretty hard. So they carried water in and dumped stuff from the upstairs windows. Boyfriends took to stripping Hondas in the garage. A posse of gang kids on the porch every night. Parties at which kids attacked each other with 2 X 4's in the street and tried to run each other over. windows and doors kicked. The house was sold as a foreclosure but none of the damage has been neatly or professionally repaired to this day. It's a rental now.

It was the illegal turn-ons that did them in and a visit from the gang squad that i arranged when the cars were being stripped. But it was hard and one ruined summer in a life - and really how many summers does anyone have?

Now I think that this sort of stuff is Detroit's future. Can't take care of property.? Never mind. Soft hearts will let you have a place anyway. Why does everyone have to have a stand-alone home?

**Goose** · August-23-11, 08:50 AM

filing a quit claim deed doesn't prove or provide any type of notice of ownership, it only proves/shows that one person gave up all interest/ownership in the property, from nothing to full ownership.... if the quit-claimer had no interest, you have no interest, and that would be quite evident on a simple title search.....

DetroitPole · August-23-11, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

This article, coupled with Mitch Album's Sunday proposal to just let working poor have empty houses in Detroit, is very alarming. Some people say that squatters are better than nothing. Working poor are better than nothing. Very naive. Working poor mostly leads to no maintainance. You see that all around right now. If you have to be given a house, will you have a lawn mower? Will you be able to have the mature trees trimmed that brush on your neighbor's roof? Will you have to move all your relatives and friends in to help you with the bills? Will you have a yard sale every day? Will you eventually hook up an illegal connection? I have seen it all.

As to just letting squatters in: I had two girls squat next door to me. They couldn't get along with their mother. They just plopped themselves down and brought any number of real boyfriends and other guys along. They said they were in the Latin Counts and pretty soon they said they "ran the street." Their boyfriends hooked up electricity and gas. They couldn't get water because City shuts off pretty hard. So they carried water in and dumped stuff from the upstairs windows. Boyfriends took to stripping Hondas in the garage. A posse of gang kids on the porch every night. Parties at which kids attacked each other with 2 X 4's in the street and tried to run each other over. windows and doors kicked. The house was sold as a foreclosure but none of the damage has been neatly or professionally repaired to this day. It's a rental now.

It was the illegal turn-ons that did them in and a visit from the gang squad that i arranged when the cars were being stripped. But it was hard and one ruined summer in a life - and really how many summers does anyone have?

Now I think that this sort of stuff is Detroit's future. Can't take care of property.? Never mind. Soft hearts will let you have a place anyway. Why does everyone have to have a stand-alone home?

This is all exactly accurate.

It doesn't help that most of Detroit's housing stock is very old, and virtually impossible to properly maintain if you don't make a decent living, even if you're a contientious neighbor with all the best intentions.

Besides the sinister side, squatters simply do not make good neighbors. Tacky shit starts happening - broken down cars in the driveway or car repair in the street, inside furniture outside, loud music for no real reason, screaming instead of talking, too many dogs and children who are not properly attended to, and say they even have a lawnmower and use it, well, the former flowerbeds and fences turn into jungles of weeds.

In short, some really ghetto shit is the very best you're going to come by with a squatter. Formerly middle class or working class people are quickly scared away. More vacant houses. Drug boys. Then it looks like the rest of Detroit - virtually overnight.

Of course all this is entirely foreign to Mitch Albom.

Maybe the 'working poor' can have any empty houses in Franklin, Michigan, where Mitch lives. That would be a lot better than foistering his manifest benovolence on other people. We want to live nice places too, Mitch, you asshole.

**bailey** · August-23-11, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by jeanofarc

Bailey,
Not to spread massive amounts of misinformation here, but the section you cited, http://www.legislature.mi.gov/[[S[[0r5...ame=mcl-565-25
talks about recording encumbrances, which are liens and such attached to a property, not deeds. That is why they talk about doing it to harass, think of like mobsters and credit card companies, not sincere debt and there are so many exceptions that a loophole could probably be found. But that matters not, because slapping a lien is not going to help the Adverse Possessor.
Here is the part about exchanging deeds; read through this carefully and see that the laws are very lax here, civil matters and as long as you've got 2 witnesses and a notary, you are set, as far as the law goes. your seeing eye dog can deliver the deed for recording; because all the proof is in the 2 witnesses and the notary that legally confirms it all with a stamp. the recording of the deed is the law, first one to record gets it. No matter if there is a break in the chain, MERS took care of that already and it is no shock to a judge. They want people in homes too. If there is no one to come forth in all those years,typically no one shows up in court and the judge grant you the property. Even if they do, all the improvements and taxes and assessments you did are owed to you in order to turn over the property.
Indecently you still need to quiet title after the 15 years, 10 if you bought the property off a tax sale and 5 if you are on any kind of deed, provable or not. Also you must pay the taxes or it will go to the county after 3 years and they don't have to play by the rules that the private sector does. I would not touch any government owned property except to garden on, personally because I wouldn't want to wake up to the house shaking.
MCL on deeds, pretty long, enjoy it.
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/[[S[[aoi...me=mcl-chap565

As the thread was revived, I'm responding to this old post to hopefully disabuse more disinformation. MERS was just struck down by the Court of Appeals. Why? because many were "shocked" at what MERS was being allowed to do and were arguing that MERS had no interest in the note, or the property, thus foreclosure by notice was improper. Per the ruling, MERS has no standing at all in Michigan, and that any foreclosures that were carried out by MERS or in the processes of being carried out by MERS are null and void.

**HistoryNotHisStory** · August-23-11, 05:23 PM

House Squatting is not a good thing. For those who advocate squatters, consider the following stories based on real-life.

Story 1.
Squatter moves into a house. Neighbors call police when they hear gunshots from a vacant house. Police arrive and enters vacant property. Squatter panics and shots police officer.

Story 2.
Squatter moves into a house. A potential buyer walks into the house to take a look before he buys. Squatter shoots and kills potential buyer for "tresspassing" into "his home."

These stories are not made up but real.

Many real estate buyers in Detroit would tell you similar stories of walking into properties and finding somone living there. It is no fun to walk into a property that you think is vacant, and finding someone living in the basement. It is very startling.

A word of advice to all who wants to purchase new property in Detroit. Knock on the door first!

DetroitPole · October-07-11, 05:31 AM

If the previous owner has filed a Deed of Forfeiture, and then squatters move in after they've gone, does Wayne County own the home? Who does one contact in Wayne County if one of their properties is being trespassed?

**Goose** · October-07-11, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by HistoryNotHisStory

A word of advice to all who wants to purchase new property in Detroit. Knock on the door first!

if you are looking at vacant properties there are many things you can do to be safer

- always go with someone else, never alone
- take a walk around the entire outside of the home first and check for kicked in doors or open windows, signs some has been there or is still there
- on the outside check pay particular attention to the porch tops, ive seen so many places where a knife is hidden in easy reach, not sure if this is just coincidence, or a stashed knife by the occupant - "just in case"
- check the electric meter for an illegal jump
- after you check, open ALL the doors, front, side, and rear, and don't go in
- go to the front and yell in the door that you are just an inspector and will be coming in in 10 minutes, this gives the squatter time to gather a few things and run out the back door that you have already opened, also, the open doors give you more fast exit points if you suddenly encounter a hostile occupant
- when you go in, take the pad lock in with you, i've heard stories of people getting locked in the homes

nothing sucks worse than being in the basement of a vacant home and then hearing footsteps upstairs... thank you CCW......

most squatters you encounter are not trying to take over the property, most are drug addicts just looking for a place to sleep out of the weather.....

like other have said, if the current owner has "abandoned" the property, its probably not worth anything and it would be easier for you to just buy the property for $1 and take over the tax bill than try to live unnoticed in the place for 15 years....

**Nee** · October-07-11, 06:59 PM

There is a couple in my mom's neighborhood that have made squatting in houses an occupation. They kicked the back door in of the house across the street and just moved in. They had to use the back door which was never locked for access to the house. [[Some squatters will put a new lock on the house.) They didn't have much, cause from what I'm told, they've squatted in several houses in the neighborhood. I don't know how, but they had illegal hook-ups so we thought they were the new tenants. Thank God, the nosey neighbor next door started asking questions and realized that they were squatters, she called the owners, who immediately came and put them out that night. I'm told that they've found another vacant house to squat in.

**SWMAP** · October-28-11, 08:50 AM

More on the issue of squatting in Detroit. This news story today illustrates the dangers of the City and or other authorities becoming advocates or supportive of sqautting - not that the City can do a thing about determined squatters.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011102...text|FRONTPAGE

For two months, squatters turned the charming Cape Cod in Detroit's historic West Village neighborhood into a drug den.
After their arrival, neighbors said, a woman was mugged, an attempted carjacking and rash of car break-ins occurred and suspicious individuals cased the street.
When the cable guy showed up at the bank-owned house, neighbors realized the squatters were there to stay.
That's right: The house at 656 Van Dyke St. had cable -- not to mention leather furniture, plenty of booze and a pit bull...
Charles Caccione, the real estate agent Bank of America hired to sell the property, was also frustrated by the situation. He said he also contacted the police for help.
Caccione said that in squatter situations, the property owner can't physically force someone out and has to go through a formal eviction process as if the squatter were a real tenant, which can take months. "Meanwhile, they're tearing the house apart, stealing copper, dealing drugs," he said. "It's a terrible process."
From a neighborhod point of view, squatters are not good overall. Soft-hearted people think"'Empty House - Family Homeless" and think that homeless family should be allowed to squat. Yet the reality is that most squatters have very bad intentions toward the shelter they happened upon. This from long experience in SW Detroit.

**EastsideAl** · October-28-11, 10:05 AM

"Squatters" in this part of the city are almost always like those in the West Village described above. They are usually drug dealers looking for a place to deal from and/or strippers looking for a base from which to strip out local property [[including the one they're living in). This parasitic population can be a disaster for a block or a community trying to maintain themselves against the tide as a decent place to live, like the West Village.

From outside these neighborhoods squatting may seem like a good thing - a way to occupy and potentially save many of the city's vacant properties. But anyone really interested in owning and maintaining property in the city with any resources whatsoever can simply buy one of the many houses that can be purchased for next to nothing. Those with no resources [[meaning they can't really take care of the house anyway), or with an illegal "profession", or acting as stripping parasites, or living a desperate lifestyle [[i.e. addict, mentally ill, or mentally ill addict) and simply in need of some shelter, squat.

**Gannon** · October-28-11, 10:21 AM

Next door to my friend's family home just west of Dexter a few blocks north of Chicago, a young family suddenly moved into the abandoned house. A few months later, some guys from the bank came by to inspect the property and found them. I happened to be on the front porch when the two white dudes walked up...they were surprised.

I didn't come around for six months or so...but just yesterday I did and saw the same young family in the house. My turn to be surprised, thinking the system was either slow or sloppy or both.

He said they bought it for the back taxes...I guess the city got it before the bank.

That has been the solution all along, as far as I've been concerned. The city should race the damn banks to the courts...and then put the structures in the hands of deserving people.

I was merely happy to find it happening...I haven't tried to buy any drugs from them, so I don't know if they're dealers. LOL...

Cheers,
John

**animatedmartian** · October-28-11, 06:08 PM

http://www.freep.com/article/20111028/NEWS01/110280439/Persistent-neighbors-get-squatting-drug-dealer-kicked-out-Detroit-house?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

One less drug dealer in Detroit after two months of complaints from neighbors. Police say they could only go in after there was proof illegal activities were going on.

For some reason this story makes me feel pretty complain-y. Maybe Detroit just needs cameras all over the place if criminals are so brazen. But then there's that whole security vs privacy debate....just ugh. Don't do drugs, kids.

**MikeM** · October-28-11, 06:15 PM

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...-Detroit/page2

**Jimaz** · October-28-11, 06:48 PM

[Real estate agent] Caccione said that in squatter situations, the property owner can't physically force someone out and has to go through a formal eviction process as if the squatter were a real tenant, which can take months.

What is the purpose of this restriction on property owners?

Is it that the formal eviction process contains a procedure for determining whether or not the occupant is a real tenant [[thus protecting real tenants)?

If so, why would that procedure "take months"?