Squatters Rights

[gvidas]

Having never looked, I would bet you can't find the phrase "squatter's rights" in any part of the Detroit City Code. It's probably not anywhere in state law, either. What we're really talking about here is tenant's rights: what protections are you due as a resident of a building; how you prove that you are the legal resident of a building; and what does the landlord have to prove before forcibly removing you.

Clearly, it is possible to abuse these protections, particularly if you're willing to destroy the building for short-term fun/profit. But let's not forget that the same laws being abused provide security and stability for every law-abiding person who rents the space they live in. They are even more important for people who have an informal or verbal lease with their landlord, or people whose landlords are amoral, incompetent, or absent.

[corktownyuppie]

But let's not forget that the same laws being abused provide security and stability for every law-abiding person who rents the space they live in. They are even more important for people who have an informal or verbal lease with their landlord, or people whose landlords are amoral, incompetent, or absent.

Exactly.

So the question is this: How do we rewrite the tenant laws to protect the innocent without inadvertently allowing months and months of theft, abuse, and general criminal behavior?

One thing that is for sure, I believe that tenants have the right to due process, but that timeline is way, way, way, too long and too much burden is on the landlords.