Loophole in Georgia law allows squatters to remain in homes with dead owners

CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - People who live in Chatham County’s Ogeechee Farms neighborhood say they’re fed up as squatters have overtaken two homes on the block.

WTOC Investigates has found a loophole in Georgia law is keeping one of the properties out of the reach for law enforcement.

The Squatter Reform Act was signed into law in Georgia last year, making squatting a misdemeanor offense and giving law enforcement the power to issue citations and remove squatters within three days if they have a signed affidavit from the owner of the property. None of that is possible if the owner of a home is dead.

“They’re driving down the property values, there’s drug activity, there’s people coming and going in the middle of the night, all hours of the day,” say Ed Smith.

Smith lives on Sylvania Road in the Ogeechee Farms neighborhood, as do his in-laws. He says the last few months, not one, but two homes in his neighborhood have been run down by people with no legal right to be there.

“Now they’re living in metal sheds and anything that’s got a roof, carports have been converted into living quarters, and the County can’t seem to get anything done about it,” says Smith.

For their part, county code enforcement and the Chatham County Police have tried. CCPD has made a combined 14 calls for service between the two properties over the last three months, seven of those involving the department’s Homeless Liason Officer.

An eviction of the squatters on one of the properties is now imminent after an ongoing court battle, but the other situation is more complicated from a legal perspective.

Under the Squatter Reform Act, CCPD can evict squatters only after presenting them with an affidavit signed by the property owner. The accused squatters then have three days to present a counter-affidavit, proving their right to be there.

The issue in this case? The owner of the house died in 2017, and the person they left it to is also dead.

“At the end of the day, the police department’s hands are somewhat tied because we don’t have any law to apply to that particular address based on circumstances that we’ve uncovered since we’ve gone out there,” says Jeff Hadley, Chief of the Chatham County Police Department.

To make matters more complicated, some of the people squatting in the house have been there for years, flying under everyone’s radar.

“They actually had even paid some of the property taxes on the location in year’s past,” says Hadley. “Now, property taxes haven’t been paid in about two years.”

Aaron ‘Adot’ Whitely, the Chatham County Commissioner for the area, says he’s never seen a situation quite like this one, but he’d advocate for an amendment to the law so this doesn’t happen anywhere else.

“We need a lot more information not just from Chatham County, but statewide as it relates to the application of this law that may not have been addressed when the legislation was crafted initially,” says Whitely.

The state legislature doesn’t go back into session until January, leaving the situation on Sylvania Road in limbo until then, or until the house goes to auction.

“This bill that was written on [sic], it’s not really worth the paper it’s written on. Basically all they have to do is read the obituaries and you found you a new house to live in,” says Smith.

Chatham County Police say that they’ve been working to connect the squatters with services for the homeless, and they believe they’re close to convincing the people in the house with no living owners to relocate. They say if that happens, they’ll be “increasing patrols in the area in an attempt to keep the structure vacant until the tax auction date.”

There are also several steps property owners can take to prevent squatters, because it can become a complicated legal problem to get rid of once it happens:

1. Inspect your property frequently to make sure no one is there that isn’t supposed to.
2. Properly secure entrances to the home- including windows and doors.
3. Display clear ‘no trespassing signs’ if you’re leaving the property empty.