(NewsNation) — A bill in Illinois awaiting the governor’s signature would give property owners more assistance when evicting squatters from their properties.
Senate Bill 1563, if signed into law, would let the police remove squatters from someone’s property on the spot as long as the rightful owner can prove the property is theirs. The law previously allowed squatters to stay on the property and let homeowners take up the issue in eviction court.
Democratic state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the current law is bad for everyone involved.
“It’s dangerous for landlords, it’s dangerous for the squatters because Illinois is a concealed carry state, and people are using their weapons to get people out of their properties,” Ford said.
Ford said the new law would classify squatters as trespassers, allowing the police to arrest them and bypass the eviction process typically associated with squatters’ rights. He added the people who are living in properties illegally are “crooks who know how to game the system.”
“It’s critical because we have people that have spent thousands of dollars in eviction court paying lawyers to get a trespasser out,” Ford said. “We’ve had people in Illinois give $10,000 to a trespasser just to move them out of the property, only to find the damage they left behind was going to cost even more money.”