Why Strict Rental Requirements Exist: How Squatter Cases Hurt Everyone

A woman booked a short-term rental in Washington D.C., refused to leave, and cost the property owner over $50,000 in lost income and legal fees. The case dragged through the courts for nearly a year. The owner eventually won, but only because the occupant had signed a document months earlier explicitly stating she was not a tenant and had no tenancy rights. Without that signed admission, the outcome might have been very different.

What made this case particularly alarming was the occupant's history. She had reportedly started a fire in a previous property. She ran what appeared to be a candle business and a nonprofit from the home she was occupying. And while the owner struggled to regain access to her own property, the occupant posted vacation photos on social media. This was not someone who fell on hard times. This was someone who understood exactly how to exploit the system.

The Ripple Effect: Why Rental Requirements Keep Getting Stricter

If you have ever wondered why landlords require credit scores of 700 or higher, why income requirements have climbed to three or even four times the monthly rent, or why any gap in rental history raises red flags, cases like this are exactly why. Every time a professional squatter exploits tenant protection laws, every landlord who hears about it tightens their requirements a little more.

Some landlords have adopted strict policies: requiring a minimum credit score of 720 and not considering anyone with anything negative in their history. Not because they want to exclude people, but because the legal system in their state is so heavily weighted toward tenants that taking a chance on someone with less-than-perfect credentials could mean months of unpaid rent and thousands in legal fees with no guarantee of recovery.

The tragic irony is that this strictness hurts the very people tenant protection laws were designed to help. Good people who have faced medical bills, divorce, job loss, or other life circumstances that damaged their credit find themselves locked out of the rental market entirely. One landlord admitted they had met plenty of people who seemed genuinely good but had faced rough breaks. They would love to give someone a chance who really needs one. But the risk of losing their property because the legal system will not support them quickly enough makes that altruism financially impossible.

How Squatter Costs Get Passed to Paying Tenants

For corporate landlords with large portfolios, squatters and scammers are a line item in the budget. They literally project expected losses from non-paying occupants and build that into their financial models. And how do they cover those losses? Through rent increases spread across all their paying tenants.

One property manager explained it plainly: they budget for rental loss from squatters, and they recover those losses through projected rental revenue increases. The tenants who pay on time and fulfill their obligations end up subsidizing the ones who do not. It is genuinely unfair to the people doing the right thing, but it is the economic reality of operating rental properties in jurisdictions with lengthy eviction processes.

This creates a feedback loop that makes housing less affordable for everyone. Squatters and professional non-payers drive up costs. Those costs get distributed across all tenants. Rents rise. More people struggle to afford housing. And the cycle continues.

The State-by-State Reality

Not all states are created equal when it comes to eviction timelines. The difference between landlord-friendly and tenant-friendly jurisdictions can mean the difference between resolving a problem in weeks versus losing a year or more of income.

Faster Resolution States

In states like Texas and parts of the Southeast, evictions for non-payment can be completed in as little as three to four weeks. Courts move quickly, and the process is relatively straightforward. In these jurisdictions, security deposits are often lower, sometimes just half a month's rent, because landlords know that if something goes wrong, they can resolve it quickly. They are more willing to take chances on tenants with imperfect histories because the downside risk is contained.

Slower Resolution States

In California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington D.C., the story is very different. Even straightforward non-payment cases can take three to six months. If the tenant knows how to work the system, using continuances, filing motions to reopen after default judgments, claiming medical emergencies to trigger additional delays, the timeline can stretch to a year or longer.

One Connecticut landlord described the playbook: tenant does not show up for hearings, landlord gets a default order, tenant files to reopen and it is always granted, wait another month for court, get a stipulated agreement, tenant violates it, get an eviction judgment, tenant visits the emergency room for a minor issue and files to reopen again. Each step adds weeks or months. A savvy non-payer can spin out the process well past six months with little effort.

The Vacation Rental Collapse

One striking example of how these laws affect real people comes from Massachusetts vacation areas like Cape Cod. For decades, workers could find affordable housing by renting vacation homes during the off-season, from Labor Day through mid-June. They would scramble to find summer housing, but the cheap winter rentals made year-round living possible.

That arrangement has largely collapsed. Property owners who once rented their vacation homes in winter now leave them empty. The reason is simple: if a winter tenant refuses to leave when summer season arrives, it could take six months to a year to remove them. By then, the entire summer rental season is lost. The risk of one bad tenant has made owners unwilling to rent at all.

The result is that the summer housing crisis for workers has become a year-round housing crisis. Workers who could once stay in the area by doubling up in summer and spreading out in winter now have no affordable options at any time of year. They leave, and local businesses lose their workforce. A law intended to protect tenants has made housing less available for everyone.

The Empty Unit Paradox

Here is a statistic that should trouble anyone who cares about housing availability: in Connecticut alone, there are over 15,000 unrented units available. That is enough to house every homeless person and family in the state, with room left over for every doubled-up household to get their own place.

Why are those units empty? Because landlords, burned by eviction moratoriums during the pandemic and burned by courts that slow-walk evictions and throw out legitimate cases on technicalities, have decided that an empty unit is less risky than a potentially problematic tenant. A conviction for shoplifting five years ago? No. A disorderly conduct charge? No. An eviction filing from three years ago, regardless of circumstances? No.

The predictable response from housing activists is to force landlords to rent out units through taxes and fines on vacancies. But that approach would simply accelerate the exodus of small private landlords from the market, leaving only the large institutional owners who have the resources to absorb losses and the lawyers to navigate complex regulations. And everyone knows how well those corporate landlords maintain their properties.

The solution that would actually work, making it easier to remove non-paying or nuisance tenants quickly, is politically difficult because there are far more tenants voting than landlords. So the system remains tilted, and the units remain empty.

What Makes Professional Squatters Different

The D.C. case illustrates a category of problem that goes beyond ordinary tenant disputes. Professional squatters are not people who fell behind on rent due to job loss or medical emergency. They are people who deliberately exploit legal protections to live rent-free as long as possible, often moving from property to property using the same tactics.

The Short-Term Rental Entry Point

Short-term rentals have become a common entry point for these schemes. Someone books an Airbnb or similar platform, stays past their reservation, and then claims tenant protections. The property owner, who never intended to be a landlord and never conducted tenant screening, suddenly finds themselves in housing court facing months of litigation.

Many short-term rental hosts have responded by limiting stays to two weeks maximum and refusing any extensions, specifically to prevent occupants from establishing tenancy claims. But this creates friction for legitimate guests who might have valid reasons for longer stays.

Serial Behavior and Falsified Information

Professional squatters often have histories. The D.C. occupant had reportedly started a fire in a previous property. Others have patterns of eviction filings across multiple addresses. Some use falsified names or documentation to avoid background checks that would reveal their history.

This is why thorough screening matters so much. A credit check alone will not catch someone using a false identity. Verifying that the person applying is who they claim to be, confirming their employment and rental history through direct contact with previous landlords and employers, and looking for inconsistencies in their application can help identify problems before they become expensive disasters.

Protecting Yourself Without Becoming Unreasonable

The challenge for landlords is finding the balance between protecting themselves and remaining accessible to good tenants who may not have perfect records. Requiring 720 credit scores and rejecting anyone with any blemish might minimize risk, but it also means turning away people who would be excellent tenants.

What Thorough Screening Actually Looks Like

Effective screening goes beyond pulling a credit report and checking a box. It means:

• Verifying identity: Confirming that the person applying matches their documentation and that the documentation is legitimate
• Contacting previous landlords directly: Not the phone number the applicant provides, but numbers you look up independently to confirm they are real property owners or managers
• Verifying employment: Calling the employer to confirm the person actually works there and earns what they claim
• Looking for inconsistencies: Gaps in rental history, reluctance to provide references, stories that do not quite add up
• Trusting your instincts: If something feels off about an application, investigate further before proceeding

Creating a Consistent Process

One of the best protections is having a standardized screening process that you apply to every applicant. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures you do not skip steps when you are busy or when an applicant seems particularly appealing. Second, it protects you from fair housing claims by demonstrating that you treat all applicants the same way.

Document your criteria in writing. Apply them consistently. Keep records of your screening process for each applicant. This paper trail protects you both from problem tenants and from accusations of discriminatory practices.

The Push for Change

The D.C. case did produce one positive outcome: it prompted the D.C. Council to examine their rental laws. Whether meaningful reform will follow remains to be seen. Politicians face pressure from tenant advocacy groups who view any landlord-friendly changes as attacks on housing rights, even when those changes would actually improve housing availability.

Some states have begun updating their squatter laws. Georgia and Florida have both passed legislation in recent years making it easier to remove people who occupy property without authorization. These changes recognize that the extreme tenant protections in some jurisdictions have created perverse incentives that hurt everyone, tenants included.

The idea of a squatter registry, a database where landlords could check whether prospective tenants have histories of non-payment or property abuse, has been proposed by some in the property management industry. Whether such a registry could survive legal challenges around privacy and discrimination is unclear, but the desire for better information sharing among landlords is real and understandable.

Final Thought

The anti-landlord sentiment that drives many tenant protection laws often misses a fundamental reality: the costs of bad actors get distributed across everyone. When professional squatters exploit the system, landlords raise their requirements. When requirements rise, good tenants with imperfect histories cannot find housing. When housing becomes harder to find, rents increase. When rents increase, more people struggle.

The system that was designed to protect vulnerable tenants has, in many jurisdictions, made housing less accessible and more expensive for the very people it intended to help. Small landlords who might have given someone a chance are selling to corporations or leaving units empty. The personal relationships that once allowed flexibility are being replaced by rigid requirements driven by legal risk.

For individual landlords, the lesson is clear: screen thoroughly, verify everything, document your process, and understand the laws in your jurisdiction. You cannot change the system, but you can protect yourself within it. And protecting yourself means you can continue to provide housing, which ultimately benefits the tenants who do pay their rent and respect their obligations.