Homeowner Who Faced Squatters Pouring CEMENT Plumbing Pipes Shares Secret To Boot Unwanted Renters

A real estate investor who had problems with squatters who once poured cement pipes has shared a secret statute to remove them without costly legal battles.

Florida landlord Sam got a tip on how to evict illegal residents from his home and avoid court after a local news station shared his story.

He was told about a Florida statute that allows police to remove them if he signs an affidavit saying they are squatters. according to Fox News.

Now the homeowner is sharing this tip, which works as long as the squatter is a transient trespasser and not a former tenant, to help other landlords in the area.

He said he would still go to court to crack down on squatters if the local news initiative Help Me Howard hadn’t given him the advice.

“I’m more than happy to be the harbinger for other people to find solutions to these kind of horrible, horrible situations that people get into,” Sam, who declined to share his last name, told Fox News.

“If I can help just one person, it’s worth it to me.”

His rental home was under contract for sale, but it stood empty while he waited for permits to replace the roof.

But when he visited the house once, he noticed that the locks were upside down and began to investigate.

“Obviously they’ve been replaced, all the locks we’ve put in have been put in correctly,” said Sam.

“So I immediately realized that, okay, someone broke into this house and is probably hanging out there, so I called the police.”

He entered the property through the back door and realized the squatters were not there, so he removed their belongings and changed the locks.

According to Sam, they began verbally and physically confronting him.

He said, ‘They started pushing us around, me and my workers and screaming, screaming.

“I have no idea who these people are, and I realize they must clearly be the squatters.”

The police then arrived on the scene and one of the squatters took a false rental agreement from her pocket.

Sam said, “She knew what to say to the officers. The fact that she had her lease on her meant to me that she already knew what was going to happen and knew this was my ticket.”

Officers then told him to turn on the squatters’ utilities and hand over the key to his house until it was resolved in court.

He then spent $1,000 on a lawyer’s advance and contacted the local TV show Help Me Howard, which gives users advice to solve their legal problems.

And he got a call from a police sergeant after the first episode.

“He says, ‘I heard you have a problem, tell me what’s going on,'” Sam said.

“So I told him and I said, you know, I’ve already hired a lawyer and he said, ‘Stop.’

The officer told Sam that squatters can be removed with a signed affidavit if they are a transient trespasser and not a former tenant.

He said, ‘I was shocked. All you have to do is sign this statement that you are the owner and that this person is just a passing trespasser and that we have the authority and the police have the authority to take them out.”

He had to close his lawsuit and lost the money he spent on the lawyer’s advance and had to make sure the police closed their case before this new method could work.

But using the Florida statute, based in Chapter 82 Section 035 of the Code of Civil Procedure and Procedure, was successful and Sam was able to get his house back.

He said one of the squatters was “calling me names all the time.”

“If they passed us, they’d yell and curse and she’d say, ‘I’m going to find you’ and other horrible things.”

The landlord found that one of the squatters had suffered nine evictions before, and in one property she allegedly poured cement through the pipes and caused $150,000 in damage.

The situation cost Sam about $15,000 to repair damage to the walls from the squatters’ dogs and plumbing problems from grease poured into the sewers.

And he lost the sale of the property when an interested buyer pulled out.

He added, “I ended up putting the house back under contract and raised the asking price of the house by $15,000, and I got it.

“So in the end I made back all the money I lost.”

He pledged 10 percent of his profits from selling the house to charity, praying during the stressful situation.

Sam donated the money to his synagogue and other charities after the money came in.

Other landlords have turned to him for help and advice with squatters’ issues after the broadcast of the second episode of Help Me Howard, which showed Sam’s illegal resident being evicted.

He said, ‘I’m trying to help. I try to tell pretty much everyone, “Hey, this is what I did, it’s really that simple, and you just have to get your cops to fix it.”‘

But Sam said he initially had a problem finding lawyers who knew about the statute and that an attorney he went to for help in the beginning contacted him to learn how the solution worked.

“I hope this will make landlords and investors more aware of this statute and hopefully encourage new legislation in other states and municipalities,” he said.