Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I'm your host as always Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville South Carolina and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any of your local real estate needs just a reminder please like the show just take a second to like it a lot of listeners and a lot of watchers that aren't doing that I'd appreciate if you guys could just take that second to do it if you're on YouTube if you're on Spotify Apple Podcast etcetera make sure you subscribe make sure that you leave a little rating or review something like that all of those good things help to get the show out to as many people as possible you guys know anyone that has communicated with you know that even if you're not a client I provide this content for you guys and I try to help all of my listeners with whatever needs that they might have even if they never use me as their realtor all that you can do in return all that I ask you do in return is those few things so please do that when you get a chance today I want to talk about excuse me some new very positive legislation that was introduced and signed into law in the state of South Carolina regarding squatters okay and there's a lot of different directions I could go with all of this but I'm just gonna start by saying this South Carolina is known to be a very landlord friendly state and even if some of the returns on rent rental properties has not been as good lately as what it used to be right in terms of what you can buy a property for and then rent it out for you know we used to be able to hit the 1% rule in fact before that we could hit the 2% rule if you don't know what that is look that up but that's investor lingo right there you don't need to know that for the purposes of this episode all I'm saying is right now the return on investment for rental properties is not what it used to be but there is still a good reason to invest in South Carolina and that is that the laws really favor landlords and you know before I get too deep into this I want to say I very much believe that tenants deserve to have their own rights as well the people that we don't want to have rights are the criminals who are squatting in properties and so the state of South Carolina has done some things that I believe are positive in in that way and I've had one time if you guys know me I have been listening to show for a while you know I've got some rental properties I've had one time an issue with squatters the issue specifically I technically you might consider it that it was that I had two issues but the primary one that I had was I had this property downtown and I was about to do a big renovation to it and it had all of these tenants living in there and the property was unlivable okay this was a situation where they were paying below market rent to live in a place that was basically a roof over their head but it was dangerous they had there were there was mold in there was all sorts of issues and it just wasn't they should not have been living in there okay and I don't ever like to kick people out that are paying below market rent just so that I can go in and do something but in the case where it's actually dangerous for them to be living there as this was and also floors were caving in there was there's a lot of things and so we had to get them out that was and they were not the squatters we followed the standard process giving notice all of that we had no issues getting them out the problem was once they got out of the property there was a delay between when I had the work started on the property and during that delay people found out homeless people found out that that property was vacant not exactly sure how they discover these things but I got a call from the Greenville City Police saying hey we believe that we have reason to believe you have squatters in this property and I was like oh gosh okay so what do I what do I do what do you recommend that I do and they were just like well we'll send you a form and if you fill that out we'll just go in there and just get the squatters out and I was like oh okay well let's do that then I'm in favor of that the thing is that I'm not exactly sure that that's what they're supposed to do the proper process but nonetheless I was grateful for it and I think in this case that they were concerned there might be some safety issues they were getting complaints from neighbors and what not and so perhaps they had they had cause to do that I just trusted them that they were doing what was within their jurisdiction because they're the police right I don't know what all the laws are about that that's been my only experience with squatters so far however the state of South Carolina now has passed a law that just across the board makes it easier for that thing for that sort of thing to happen because guess what the reality is that Greenville City Police is not everywhere in in Greenville County or in some of the surrounding counties I don't think you're gonna get that sort of service from other police departments and so this was necessary and again this is for the entire state not specifically for the upstate so this was originally House Bill 33 87 and this was signed into law and so here is basically my understanding of the way this works if you're a property owner and you believe that you have a squatter in the property right you don't have anyone currently leasing the property it's a vacant property but somebody has entered the property illegally and is now staying there not leaving they don't have a lease agreement verbal or written and by the way this is this has become a problem now that AI has made it to where people can produce what appeared to be legitimate leases very very easily and this has been something that's been happening is that these squatters have been using AI and yes squatters do have access to that sort of technology people don't you know often times I think that that's not the case that is the case whether they you know access it from someone else or whether they have a device that has it but they're producing lease agreements using AI that look official that look signed and all of that and claiming that they have the right to be in a property and obviously that's multiple layers of illegal so when this happens owners can file a verified petition with a magistrate or clerk of court and the court can immediately issue an ex parte emergency removal order that then law enforcement takes out removing the person and then a formal hearing must take place within 24 hours of the filing okay so you suspect there is a squatter you make a petition immediately they contact law enforcement to get that person out and then within 24 hours there is a hearing the owner during that period of time during that 24 hour period of time can change the locks once the law enforcement officers have done their part they can move the squatter's property to the property line while an officer stands by to keep the peace and then the hearing happens and assuming that the person that that filed the petition was not doing something illegal right assuming that they did not actually give the squatter who they're claiming to be a squatter you know a a lease agreement or something or some access to the property one way or the other assuming that they are being honest which is a a big part of this then that's it after 24 hours the squatter can no longer return to that property there can be restraining orders involved as part of that there's all sorts of different rules and if someone is wrongfully removed without just cause they can sue for restored possession actual damages and $1,000 in statutory damages minus any property damage that they caused so that's important right that that helps to keep the landlord from just removing someone that they don't like you know that say they there's someone leasing the property and they're like you know what I'm sick of this person I'm going to you know they're they told me that they'd be out within a couple of weeks I know I gave them 30 days notice whatever I need them out sooner whatever the case may be if they if a landlord does something like that there are penalties for them which include the person being able to go back into the property so if you're a landlord listening to this don't get ideas that you can abuse this law there are protections in place for lawful tenants but for squatters if an unlawful occupant intentionally causes $1,000 or more in damages to the residential dwelling it's a felony carrying up to five years in prison additionally violating a removal order if anyone who violates the terms of an ex parte squatter removal order is guilty of a felony is guilty of a felony that that person is guilty of a felony sorry I'm trying to read this carrying up to 3 years in prison and a 3,000 dollar fine all right again if you're a squatter you get that ex parte order you've got to be out you don't want to have to spend three years in prison just because you wanted to illegally occupy this property additionally they are cracking down on rental and listing scams okay so advertising or leasing a property for sale or rent knowing you have no legal title or ownership to it is a misdemeanor could be up to 30 days in prison or a 1,000 dollar fine and I think maybe both this is actually something that that we have been running into a lot I have been running into this a lot personally with properties that I have now interestingly since this law has gone into place I've not been getting as many phone calls about this but I've been getting a lot of phone calls from people saying hey I've been seeing that you have this property listed for rent on TikTok but then they tell me that I have to send a Facebook message to this person and then they direct me to WhatsApp and then ask for security deposit and every time I just interrupt the people I'm like you are being scammed they're trying to get you to pay a security deposit an application fee and all of that and you're never ever going to get in this property because it is for sale it is not for rent I am not renting the property I'm the listing agent and thankfully you know people do a little bit of homework and see okay hmm there's a real estate brokerage that has this property for sale maybe we should look into this to see if there is a scam and so those people call me and I immediately tell them that's a scam and I always ask them to send me the link to where they saw the scam and about only about 10% of the time do they actually do that when they do that I go to TikTok or whatever platform it is and report those people for what they're doing well now that is a criminal offense to do that very thing to go on TikTok and to list something like that for rent that's not for rent and those people can spend 30 days in prison and or a 1,000 dollar fine for those that present a fake lease knowingly presenting a fraudulent lease or deed to remain on a property is now a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison so listen South Carolina is saying private property you know we have had issues in our state with particularly on the local level but there we've had some issues on the state level as well with private property rights not being a priority for a variety of reasons and that is a core part of the South Carolina DNA that is a core part of the identity of our state is that we have strong private property rights and that needs to continue and this is a great step in that direction tightening up some of the laws and removing some of the loopholes that were allowing people to illegally occupy properties allowing people to illegally advertise properties you know couple of years ago they passed the law on against wholesaling okay same thing there's a lot of predatory wholesalers out there that are trying to you know basically what they do is they don't tell some they tell someone that they're gonna buy their house they get under contract super cheap and then they try to assign that contract to someone else for $50,000 more than what they got it for you know on the surface and I know people that have been in wholesaling over the years and on the surface it can be providing a public good right because sometimes they're able to move a property without you know inspections and all of that and able to I've seen situations where people were about to go into foreclosure a wholesaler got involved they were able to remedy the foreclosure situation and get the person some money in their pockets before they just lost everything but there's a lot of predatory with every good story there's five predatory ones and so they had to make that law functionally banning wholesaling in these predatory instances they had to ban it across the board now they have tightened up all of these rules with regard to squatters with regard to faking lease agreements with regard to what was the what was the other thing that I mentioned in there with regard to illegally listing a property for lease or for rent which that one really irritates me because you know they use my photos that I paid for my listing and I like the law is I can't even like let's say I have a buyer client that purchases a home I can't use the listing agent's photos for my own advertising of like hey I helped to sell this home without going getting permission from the listing agent which I just don't do like that's just not something that agents do right you know if you if you really want to advertise that take some pictures yourself you know after closing at the property that's your best bet but it's annoying to me that you've got these people out here not only are they trying to scam people but they're also stealing you know basically my digital property in order to perpetuate their scam and then that also it's a waste of my time on top of it right because now I'm getting these phone calls from people and I'm always going to take those phone calls and I'm always going to take the time to explain to these people that they're getting scammed because we need to stop these scammers and so I'm glad that the state of South Carolina has made some common sense reforms here that were necessary and continue to bolster private property rights that's exactly what we need and so this is the thing if you are interested in being a landlord or a landlady in the state of South Carolina this is a good reason to do it maybe the numbers aren't as good as in some other areas but look at the private property rights in some of these other areas I can't speak to them I can't speak to what it's like in North Carolina I can't speak to what it's like in Georgia they're all of these states are very different in terms of how they approach these things but I can speak to South Carolina that they're making some good common sense changes tightening things up eliminating loopholes all of that and I'm grateful for that you guys know I'm involved on the back end of a lot of political things around here and when something bad happens you know in in terms of what our government is doing we're on top of that okay we've got a lot of people here that we can mobilize to tell our government hey stop it stop that we had something recently which I might talk about later that that dealt with some of our lakes where government was trying to trample private property rights we got them to stop doing that because people were like no that's not cool that's not okay we have to keep the government accountable in those instances in this case the government listened to concerns that that the Realtors had that property owners had and they did the right thing to put in these additional productions and so just continuing to further you know one of the best things for investors in the state of South Carolina is the laws that we have that protect rental real estate rental properties from damage from people that don't have lease agreements from squatters from all of that and so this is a like I said a positive step in the right direction that's all for today's episode I'm busy right now I did not have time for a long episode but I hope that that was helpful for you guys shed some light a lot of people don't know these new laws so I want to make sure that gets out there so I hope you enjoyed that please like rate review subscribe to the show if you enjoy this sort of content I've got a lot of exciting stuff coming up here in the upcoming weeks and if you need a realtor reach out to me my contact information is in the show notes I'll talk to you guys again next time!