New York City's extreme measure to prevent 'freeloading' tenants

Authorities are moving to “criminalise freeloading” in a major city where squatting has become a crisis.

New York City’s council wants to introduce a law that will track and map squatters in abandoned buildings around Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs.

Squatting in New York is dealt with a civil matter, rather than a criminal incident.

In Australia, if a squatter lives in a property for long enough, they may have a legal claim to it. Squatting itself is not illegal in Australia, according to Victorian Legal Aid, but police can charge a person with trespassing if they are in property against the owner’s wishes.

In The Big Apple, authorities will set up a database that records the addresses of known squatter houses and the number of days the property has been occupies by squatters, according to The New York Post. The database would also note when police became aware of the squatters and any action or responses they have undertaken.

The information would be updated quarterly and reported online.

Councilwoman Susan Zhuang is a major driver of the bill. She has had first-hand experience with squatters in her Brooklyn neighbourhood.

“In my district, a union worker was forced to continue paying thousands of dollars for a mortgage for a home he and his hospitalized wife cannot live in,” Zhuang told the The Post. “The house had been burnt down four times by a squatter who also caused a lot of other issues in the neighborhood.”

“People are afraid to even take a vacation, and when they come back their home will be occupied by someone else.”

The problem often bypasses police.

“When the squatting gets reported it’s classified as a landlord and tenant issue, which gets directly passed to housing court. There is insufficient data about squatting.”

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