Lawmakers approve bill to allow Wyoming law enforcement to remove squatters

It may soon be easier for Wyoming property owners to obtain local law enforcement’s help removing squatters. 

The Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee voted 10-4 on Thursday to sponsor a bill creating a process for property owners to request law-enforcement assistance in removing unauthorized occupants from a residential property. The bill also creates additional criminal trespassing offenses. 

The committee worked the bill throughout the Legislature’s off-season, also known as the interim, after hearing concerns from property owners, including one Casper woman who described hitting a dead-end with police after finding six squatters on one of her properties. 

The squatters eventually left, but Sen. Jim Anderson (R-Casper) told the committee the incident highlighted a gap in the law and that legislation was needed. Lawmakers obliged, formed a working group and drafted legislation largely resembling a Florida law enacted this summer. 

The final legislation sponsored by the committee would make squatting that involves property destruction a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

Most of the lawmakers’ discussion on the bill Thursday involved amendments, but the committee’s two Democrats voiced concerns that the bill needed more work and could cause more harm than good. 

“I like limiting this bill to squatters. That’s perfect. That’s a good thing. That’s one of the big improvements we made to this bill,” Rep. Ken Chestek (D-Laramie) said. 

Trespass and eviction statutes already on the books are sufficient, Chestek said, “and those remedies incorporate due process and have real judges deciding who has rights and who doesn’t have rights.”

Chestek and Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) voted against the bill alongside Freedom Caucus members Reps. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland) and Mark Jennings (R-Sheridan). 

Discussion 

While working the bill throughout the interim, the committee heard conflicting testimony from law enforcement on its necessity. 

“We hear from some who say the existing trespass statute works most of the time for most of the circumstances,” Rep. Art Washut (R-Casper) said at Thursday’s meeting. “And we hear others who say, ‘No, we need some changes.’ And so it’s interesting as we hear these different opinions about what the law needs to be in order to achieve the goal that we’re looking for here.”

Converse County Sheriff Clint Becker told the committee trespassing laws already on the books have been sufficient in Douglas for dealing with squatters, but that might not hold true elsewhere. 

“I can’t talk for the larger cities,” Becker said. 

Evansville Police Chief Mike Thompson, on the other hand, said he had concerns about the bill being limited to residential properties. 

“Squatting isn’t, it isn’t just to residential dwellings. It can be any particular property. And so that’s part of the mud of this,” Thompson said. “You take like a camp or a tent or like an RV bus. Those can be considered, you know, residential dwellings, in a sense, by law.”

Rep. Ember Oakley (R-Riverton) discouraged the committee from widening the legislation’s scope. 

“My thought on this bill is we’re trying to keep this specific and narrow,” Oakley said. “[It’s] not about renters, not about tenants, not about eviction. This is a specific, narrow [bill] about people squatting in a house.”

As the bill proposes, a property owner can ask local law enforcement for “the immediate removal of any person unlawfully occupying or possessing the owner’s residential dwelling” if two conditions are met. 

For one, the person requesting the removal must be the property owner or “the owner’s authorized agent,” the bill states. Secondly, the “‘unauthorized person’ means a person who is not authorized or is no longer authorized to maintain presence or residency in a residential dwelling.”

An earlier draft of the bill included a third requirement that the property owner first ask the squatter in person or in writing to vacate, but the committee agreed with Rep. Barry Crago’s (R-Buffalo) suggestion to strike it. 

“I know based on previous testimony we heard at our prior meeting that that particular person was brave enough to go ask [squatters] to leave, but some people shouldn’t be brave enough to go ask them to leave,” he said. “I think there could be some situations where that ends poorly.”

Additionally, the bill requires law enforcement to “verify that the person who submitted the complaint is the record owner of the residential dwelling or the authorized agent of the owner.”

The committee also amended the bill’s definition of an “unauthorized person” and specified that the definition does not include a current or former tenant. 

That was a much-needed adjustment, according to Allen Thompson, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. 

“I would say that our membership … would be very appreciative of this tenancy issue being put in here, because that was our concern from a liability standpoint,” Thompson said. “If someone had been a tenant and were afforded rights as a tenant, and we got in the middle of that process, regardless of if the law allows it, I think it would bring liability on the law enforcement.” 

In Wyoming, sheriff’s offices usually deal with evictions, and less so municipal officers. The bill would authorize both kinds of law enforcement to remove squatters. That was a concern for Rep. Provenza, who insisted the bill still needed more work. 

“We’ve done good work today, committee, on cleaning up this bill, but golly gee, it used to mean something that a bill wasn’t ready for prime time,” Provenza said. 

Ultimately, the committee voted 10-4 to sponsor the bill. 

“Thank you for your efforts on that bill, committee,” Sen. Bill Landen (R-Casper) said following the vote. “Still some work to do, perhaps, but glad we’re able to continue on.”

The general session begins Jan. 14. 

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