Most squatting disputes people hear about involve a lockout, a locksmith, and months in housing court. A case out of Long Beach, California, shows how much further the problem can go once the people occupying a home start treating it as leverage instead of shelter, allegedly filing a fraudulent deed to claim ownership and then demanding roughly $500,000 just to walk away.
How the Long Beach Case Unfolded
According to Fox News, the scheme began while the homeowner was hospitalized and grieving the death of his wife. Occupants with documented gang ties allegedly moved into the residence and used a quitclaim deed to fraudulently transfer the title into their own names, then told the rightful owner he would need to pay approximately half a million dollars if he wanted the property back. Fox News reported that the home was subsequently tied to gang activity, narcotics sales, and prostitution, and that the situation escalated into a shooting before it was resolved.
Property fraud investigators were eventually able to unwind the fraudulent title transfer, and the owner regained possession without paying the demand, per that reporting. Fox News said it reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s office, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office for comment; only LAPD and the Long Beach Police Department responded, and neither was able to confirm the specifics of the case from the limited details provided to them. That gap is worth sitting with: even a case this extreme can be difficult for outside agencies to verify after the fact, particularly once it’s resolved privately.
A Smaller Demand, the Same Playbook
The tactics in the Long Beach case aren’t unique to it. A Chicago homeowner named Marco Velazquez went through a version of the same scheme on a much smaller scale, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit legal organization that took up his case. Velazquez discovered squatters occupying his family’s South Side home; when police arrived, the occupants produced a document purporting to show a lease or mortgage claim, and officers told him it was a civil matter he’d need to sort out in eviction court rather than a crime they could act on immediately. Facing a court process that could stretch on for months, Velazquez ultimately paid the squatters roughly $4,300 simply to leave.
The through-line in both cases is the same: occupants who can produce even a questionable paper claim to a property often buy themselves the protections of a tenant, forcing an owner to choose between a lengthy civil eviction and paying to make the problem disappear. Pacific Legal Foundation notes that Illinois lawmakers have since introduced Senate Bill 1563, aimed at letting police remove occupants once ownership is clearly established rather than defaulting to civil process.
Why Lawmakers Are Racing to Catch Up
Illinois isn’t alone in rewriting its rules. According to a fact-check report from ABC News affiliate WCIV, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed legislation making it a felony to create fraudulent lease documents as part of an online squatting scheme, Florida’s House Bill 621 lets property owners request sheriff assistance removing unauthorized occupants under specific conditions, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed two bills meant to speed up the eviction process specifically for squatters. New York lawmakers, meanwhile, have moved to formally define “squatter” in state housing law. The report cites the National Apartment Association’s finding that at least 30 states considered anti-squatting legislation in the first half of 2025 alone, with 13 enacting new or expanded laws.
What This Means If You Own a Vacant Property
An empty house, whether it’s inherited, mid-renovation, or simply between tenants, is the scenario every one of these cases starts with. Checking on vacant property regularly, keeping utilities and mail activity visible from the street, and changing locks the moment a property becomes unoccupied all reduce the window where someone can move in and start building a paper trail. Once an occupant is inside and has any kind of document to point to, even a forged one, getting them out typically requires the same slow civil process regardless of how obviously fraudulent the underlying claim turns out to be. Acting before that window opens is far cheaper than any settlement that comes after.