CHEYENNE — When Casper Realtor Ronna Boril was confronted by multiple men in one of her rental properties that she believed was vacant, she was unable to call local law enforcement to remove the unauthorized occupants.
Boril had to rely on a friend to help chase the men out and clean the rental property, which had been left trashed. With dirty mattresses and drug paraphernalia littering the home, she was left with a disaster that cost her nearly $15,000 to clean.
The experience led Boril to team up with Sen. Jim Anderson, R-Casper, to write the bill, “Residential Property — Removal of Unlawful Occupants,” which was discussed by the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee at its meeting on Thursday.
The bill was considered alongside a draft bill entitled “Use of Fraudulent Documents to Possess Unlawful Property,” both of which are intended to strengthen the rights of homeowners. While both bills were debated, most of the discussion focused on the issue of squatters.
Anderson’s bill coincided with discussions the committee had already had. While committee members ultimately decided to move the bill to their November meeting to give them time to make adjustments based on stakeholder concerns, it’s an issue lawmakers have recently sought to address.
Testimony on ‘squatters’ law
Boril and Anderson, joined by Laurie Urbigkit of Wyoming Realtors, were the first to address the committee. Boril has been a real estate agent since 1975, she told the committee. In December 2022, she encountered her first squatters when she visited a vacant property after the former tenants left without notice or payment of the last month’s rent. When she entered the property, she was confronted by several men.
“He asked, ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?'” Boril told the committee. “And I said, ‘I’m going to ask you the same thing. Who are you and what are you doing on my property?’ This is kind of the key to this whole squatting thing, the claims that they’re making.”
Boril threatened to throw the squatters out with the help of the Casper police, but was told that it was a civil matter and that there was nothing they could do.
Anderson told the committee that Wyoming homeowners currently have to go through a variety of procedures to remove squatters from a home. His goal was to write a bill that would address the issue of removing squatters, modeling it after a similar bill that passed in Florida.
“Instead of being tenants, they’re trespassers, and that’s what this bill does,” Anderson said. “Makes them trespassers (who) break the law, not tenants that you have to deal with.”
Anderson introduced the bill with the hopes that the committee would treat it as a committee-sponsored bill, making it more likely to pass during next year’s legislative session.
“Since my disturbing experience, I have thought a lot about this issue,” Boril told the committee. “If I were a lawyer for an incapacitated person or squatter, I think I would approach this by trying to prove some kind of lease, whether it is implied or toleration, and thereby obtain tenant rights for my client.”
Boril told the committee that she fears there are legal loopholes in the bill as it stands. She said she believes the bill should somehow eliminate any potential false claim of rent from the bill.
Boril also told the committee that she believes the squatters should be held responsible for the damage they cause, including any legal costs.
“I believe we need to review and find a balance between prescription and trespass,” Boril said. “Both have definitions and lateral information. Draft statutes carefully so that the language of prescription, if you’re going to use it, doesn’t encourage or reward trespass or being an incompetent person.”
Urbigkit added that it is clear to her that this is a statewide issue. After emailing the 2,500 members of Wyoming Realtors, Urbigkit found that multiple Realtors in nearly every county in Wyoming had similar experiences to report.
Legal concerns
The committee wondered whether there was any need for the bill at all if the problem could be solved through existing legislation.
Allen Thompson, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police (WASCOP), addressed some of the committee’s concerns about current law enforcement.
According to Thompson, law enforcement officers must consider their legal rights when dealing with potential offenders.
He said there is a difference between an offender illegally entering someone’s home (a clear violation that police can take action against) and a tenant remaining on the property after being given a three-day warning (a violation that is normally court-supervised and requires police to take legal action to enforce the violation).
Thompson told the committee that law enforcement can obtain legal immunity if they can prove they have reasonable suspicion that a person is on a property without legal reason. That is not a guarantee, however.
“Just because it’s written into law that we’re immune doesn’t mean we’re actually immune,” Thompson said. “If we bypass the existing eviction process for someone who was a tenant, is there liability for law enforcement and then the property owner? It’s just something we have a lot of questions about.”
Thompson said the bill should make a clear distinction between a trespasser who has no legal right to be on a property and a tenant who fails to abide by an agreement.
“We believe these are two completely different things,” Thompson said.
Sheridan County Sheriff Levi Dominguez and Sublette County District Attorney Clayton Melinkovich addressed concerns about the bill’s language, which focuses heavily on sheriffs as opposed to law enforcement in general.
The bill contains several rules that imply that the sheriff is solely responsible for removing an unauthorized person. For example, it states: “An owner or the owner’s authorized agent may petition the sheriff in the county in which the property is located for the immediate removal of a person unlawfully occupying or possessing the owner’s residence if all of the following conditions are met.”
Dominguez and Melinkovich suggested putting the emphasis on general law enforcement, not just the sheriff.
Melinkovich told the committee he wasn’t sure there was a need for the bill at all. He added that these issues could be addressed through Wyoming’s criminal trespass law, which he and his firm recommend to clients who call with questions about squatters and trespassers.
“Our criminal trespass law requires a notice, and that notice can be given in person, or it can be mailed,” Melinkovich told the committee. “In the event that that notice is there, or the owner of the record is there, or the person can show a sheriff’s deputy some verification or some type of information that they are the owner, that can be addressed directly through your general trespass law.”
Melinkovich acknowledged that what Boril went through must have been a harrowing experience. However, he told the commission that such occupations are already illegal in Wyoming.
At this point in the discussion, some committee members began to wonder why some counties were confident enough to deal with trespassing and squatting while others were not. Thompson pointed out that officers were likely acting on the advice of their attorneys, and Natrona County District Attorney Daniel Itzen weighed in on why attorneys didn’t simply encourage police to remove potential squatters.
“I think part of being a good counselor is being cautious and taking baby steps,” Itzen said. “You don’t want to give your law enforcement partners advice that’s going to get them sued. Do they know everything that’s going on at midnight? Probably not. Do you want to step out on that ledge and say, ‘Go do this?’ Probably not.”
Itzen told the committee that officers can hear conflicting things from tenants and homeowners. They often have questions about what qualifies as a civil matter and what is criminal, which determines whether they can act.
According to Itzen, the bill clarifies many of these questions, with the goal of defining what is a civil problem and what is a criminal problem. Itzen said the bill was “workable,” and he did see a reason to have a bill that addresses these issues.
Due to the amount of conflicting testimony the committee heard, members elected to forward both bills to the November meeting. In the meantime, a group of committee members will work on the bills to clarify their terms and better serve all stakeholders.
