If someone owns a piece of property and allows unabated trespassing across the property for long periods of time, and then arbitrarily starts enforcing their property rights, real estate law tells them they may not have the rights to do this, even if they own the property. Currently, we have a new type of trespassing that is absolutely out of control – Foreclosure Squatting.

This is where someone, could even be a homeless person moves into an empty property and just starts living there. After the subprime lending debacle the number of foreclosed homes has risen by nearly 3500%. With all these home vacated, it is prime pickings for someone moving in. Worse, many of the banks that own these properties have let them go, and have not even been out to see if anyone has moved in illegally.

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Just when you thought you knew everything about real estate law, there comes along something that changes everything. Let me explain something that recently happened to a friend of mine that owns a coin op carwash and a mini storage unit does right by an airport. The new Department of Homeland Security laws requires that each Airport have a buffer zone between the airport fence and the rest of the world. This is to protect against so-called terrorists coming onto the airport property or firing a weapon over the fence.

Despite what you might think about such a topic, or how you lean politically this can be a huge problem if you own a piece of property that is adjacent to the airport. In this case, my friend found that his properties were cut in half by imminent domain and the government bought the properties at the bottom of the market. When they cut off the back of his coin op carwash, it was no longer usable and therefore he had to tear down the facility because he couldn’t make money with it any longer.

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Many federal legislators never stop long enough to read the bills they are signing. This leads to unintended consequences. Take for instance the new home energy efficiency rules that were tucked inside the alternative energy spending bill. There is a clause in that bill that prevents homeowners from selling their property if they don’t have proper weather stripping and if their homes are not energy compliant. But if the homeowner cannot afford to upgrade, then they are not allowed to sell there home to the new buyer or the new buyer is not allowed to buy the home until things have been upgraded.

This obviously means there will be fewer home sales at a time when the real estate market is in the trash can, and it could lead to more foreclosures. It’s laws like this that don’t help anyone and while we may be helping ourselves to better efficiency in our energy usage, we are violating the personal property rights of the owners and getting in the way of the right of free contract which is guaranteed in the Constitution.

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