An army officer away for an active-duty assignment spoke out after an ordeal dealing with a squatter in her former Chicago home. Lt. Col. Dahlia Daure said that she was in the process of selling her home in order to relocate to Georgia for an assignment, but learned that a vagrant and moved in, making the home sale process extremely challenging.
Making a resolution more difficult was the fact that the squatter, since identified as Vincent Simon, claimed to have a lease and paid $19,000 for the next six months of rent.
“That was quite alarming to find out that someone else had moved into my home,” Daure said to Fox host Will Cain during an appearance on one of the network’s nightly shows.
Local outlet WSB-TV reported that the squatting Simon had been served with eviction papers but also that Daure would have to deal with the lengthy process of waiting for all of the paperwork and legal back and forths to play out.
Still, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office acted on the accusation, serving an intruder affidavit and requiring that the man “immediately vacate an Ellenwood home in DeKalb County owned by a military officer.
It’s nice to see that the Blue have the backs of military personnel.
“Mr. Simon had been accused of illegally occupying the residence, which had been for sale by the owner while she was deployed with the U.S. Army Reserves in Chicago, Illinois. The civil service process was accomplished without incident and Mr. Simon vacated the residence, but a weapon was found inside the home and drugs were found on the suspect before he left the premises,” the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office posted to its Facebook page. “Mr. Simon was arrested and charged with Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon and Possession of a Controlled Substance. He was taken into custody and transported to the DeKalb County Jail.”
“It’s kind of unjust to find out that someone can literally move into your home with a fictitious lease with a company that doesn’t exist,” Daure said to Cain. “My house was not on the market for rent. It was on the market for sale. I had a contract on the house. And to find out that this person moved into my home right after I got done renovating– it was very aggravating and I was angry.”
Daure went on to say that she was even forced to back out of a sale of the property because “the buyer got spooked.”
“I used the Georgia 44…title 44 1130 to get him out. A lot of people really don’t know about that. It has to do with the sheriff’s office, though. The police can’t get them out because it’s a civil matter,” she explained. “But had I not gone to the media, I would not have had the opportunity to get my home back today.”
One Fox News commenter below the article observed that this situation thankfully got the attention of the media because of Daure’s military service, but in general that homeowners are losing more and more ground to squatters and vagrants.
“Squatters have more rights than homeowners across the country. When they are finally evicted, months or years later, the homeowner is usually faced with thousands of dollars in repairs. Squatter laws need to be enacted to protect the homeowner. If the homeowner says they don’t have a lease/rental agreement with the squatter and the squatter can’t prove otherwise, it ought to result in the immediate eviction of the squatter. If the squatter has some fake lease, they can pursue it in court with the person whom they signed it with. Bottom line, the homeowner has zero responsibility to allow the squatter to retain access to their property,” the commenter said.
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