Q: If I have people living in a house for 3 years and I haven’t renewed their lease in a year, do they have squatter rights
They have been in the process of buying the home but it’s been 3 years and nothing. So I want them out. I rented to them for a year but two years later they won’t leave because they claim to have invested in the home even though the house has not been sold to them as of yet.
A:
Hello and thank you for using JUSTIA. In Puerto Rico squater's rights are claimable in one of two ways. The first way being in good faith and the second is in bad faith. In your particular situation good faith does not apply since there was a rental agreement. Thus the only way they can claim squater's rights are under bad faith. In order to be able to do this they would have to show that they maintained possesion of the property for more than thirty years as acting owners without the legally registered owners having done any claim or action of ownership within those thirty years. This is known as "Usucapion" in spanish, squater's rights in english.
In order to eject them you will need to file a Court claim known as "DESAHUCIO". The average cost for legal fees are $ 1,500.00.
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