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A man from Georgia says squatters broke into his home and changed the locks after spotting a rental listing for the property online, all while he was away caring for his sick wife. Paul Callins (pictured) from DeKalb County near Atlanta had recently spent thousands of dollars refurbishing the home after it was left to him by his father in his will after he died from cancer in 2021.
After completing a lengthy renovation, Callins posted an ad online in the hopes of finding a tenant for the property. But squatters appear to have taken advantage and broke into the rental home, which was vacant, and switched the locks, locking him out of his own house. Two men and a woman are now living in the home illegally. ‘Basically, these people came in Friday, broke into my house and had a U-Haul move all their stuff in. It’s frustrating. It’s very frustrating. I can’t even sleep,’ Callins told WSB. ‘I guess they have done this before, because when I called the police, they said since they have a fake lease, that they can’t do anything. That it’s a civil matter,’ Callins explained.
It appears to be a long and tedious process to have the imposters thrown out. In Georgia, police cannot remove squatters. Callins must first file an ‘Affidavit of Intruder’ notice in court and have it signed by a judge. He can then appeal to the county sheriff’s office to have the squatters evicted. ‘I have to go through the court system, and I understand it could take 60 to 90 days,’ he said.
When confronted by a local television news reporter as the squatters entered the home, they refused to answer questions. About 1,200 homes across DeKalb County are currently occupied by squatters, according to the National Rental Home Council trade group.
A new law that would allow police to arrest squatters for trespassing and making fake lease a felony is close to passing in the Georgia General Assembly. The proposed bill, named the Georgia Squatter Reform Act, expands criminal trespassing to include persons who enter property without the consent of the owner for any period of time.
‘We’re dealing with criminals. These are people that know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re stealing other people’s most valuable capital, which is their home,’ Rep. Devan Seabaugh (pictured), a Republican co-sponsoring the bill, told Fox News. ‘I’ve heard from a lot of people. This has caused them to file bankruptcy. They’re mentally harmed by it. It’s a tough situation, and we have to do something. I don’t know how it took us this long to get here … but no more free rides,’ Seabaugh said. ‘What we’ve done is create new code in the Georgia law that says, if you’re squatting in a home, and you do not have the consent or legal authority to be in it, you’ll be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor of a highly aggravated nature. You’ll be fined, and you may spend up to a year behind bars.’
Seabaugh added that the new law would also speed up court proceedings, with hearings being held in a non-jury magistrate court to decrease the time it takes to remove squatters from a property. The situation has become so dire in the city that homeowners have offered to pay off squatters to get them out of their homes, rather than risk losing months of rent. One squat in the Georgia city was even being run as illegal secret strip club and had to be cleared out by an entire FBI swat team.
The FBI had to get involved and arrested four people who had taken up residence at 4951 Wewatta Street in South Fulton without permission. The 4,000 square foot five bed home with three bathrooms was trashed by the squatters. Photos from inside the home after the FBI cleared it out showed the halls eerily empty, except a cartoonish green lizard painted on one wall. Trash littered the property with a half-finished water bottle, a crumpled plastic bag and a bottle of Pink Whitney – the popular lemonade-infused vodka – sitting atop a railing. Neighbors said they were running a strip club on the weekend, noisy parties and car races in the street.
Four young men – DeAnthony Maddox, Jeremy Wheat, Kelvin Hall, and Tarahsjay Forde – were arrested on the premises. All four were booked into Fulton County Jail on multiple charges, including several counts of theft by receiving stolen property.
Last year, a deployed Lt Colonel Dahlia Daure (pictured) said she felt ‘violated’ when she learned a man was squatting in her home while she was away on active service. Daure told local media that Vincent Simon – a man who has been convicted on guns, drugs, and theft charges – was living in her $500,000 home. The Army officer had been away from her Ellenwood residence for duty in Chicago – and only found out he had moved in as the house was in the process of being sold. ‘I felt violated. Had I not been serving my country, I would have been in my home,’ Daure told WSB-TV.
Simon was later kicked out and arrested following his unwelcome stay , after telling Daure she would need to go through the courts. CEO of the National Rental Home Council, David Howard previously explained to DailyMail.com: ‘Incidents of illegal trespassing in the Atlanta metro area are disproportionately higher than comparable markets across the country. The sheer volume and consistency of practice in terms of how these incidents happen are clearly indicative of some kind of organized criminal effort.’ He added: ‘This is obviously a property rights issue first and foremost, but the impact of this kind of activity extends well beyond the concerns of the individual property owner. There are serious public safety issues at play here – who is in the home? What is happening in the property? What is the risk to others in the neighborhood? Also, there’s a real concern here about the availability of affordably-priced housing.’
Online listings and virtual real estate agents can allow squatters to find vacant addresses and gain access by booking fake appointments. Some people may not even know they are squatters as scam artists can set up fake listings for empty properties and fake lease agreements. Once a squatter is in, it’s hard to get them out. It can take three months to get a court hearing for an eviction, and another three months to get a deputy or marshal to clear out the home.
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