Florida squatters law: removing an unlawful occupant.

If someone has moved into a property you own and they have never been your tenant, Florida no longer makes you file an eviction to get them out. Section 82.036 of the Florida Statutes lets you hand the sheriff a verified complaint and ask for immediate removal. The statute took effect on 1 July 2024.

The catch is in the word unlawful. The remedy is built for a person who broke in and stayed. It is not built for a tenant you want gone, a relative who overstayed, or a guest who will not leave — and each of those has a different legal route. Sending the sheriff after the wrong person carries a triple-rent penalty, so the classification step matters more than the paperwork.

First: which of the three situations is this?

Florida gives you three separate procedures, and they are not interchangeable. Nearly every costly mistake in this area is an owner using the fast one on a person who was legally entitled to the slow one.

Note the middle row. Section 82.035 was renumbered from the old § 82.045, so guides and forms still citing "82.045" are pointing at a section number that no longer exists.

The eight conditions in section 82.036

You can ask the sheriff for immediate removal only if all eight of the conditions in § 82.036(2) are met. There is no partial qualification and no discretion to waive one.

1. You are the property owner, or the owner's authorized agent.
2. The property being occupied includes a residential dwelling.
3. The occupants unlawfully entered and remain or continue to reside there.
4. The property was not open to the public when they entered.
5. You have directed them to leave.
6. They are not current or former tenants under a written or oral rental agreement you authorized.
7. They are not your immediate family members.
8. There is no pending litigation about the property between you and any known unauthorized person.

What you file, and what the sheriff does

You submit a Complaint to Remove Persons Unlawfully Occupying Residential Real Property to the sheriff of the county where the property sits. The statute sets out the form: thirteen statements you initial individually, signed under penalty of perjury, with a copy of your government-issued ID attached — or, if you are the owner's agent, documents evidencing your authority.

Two of the thirteen boxes are worth reading before you sign anything:

Once you file it, § 82.036(4) tells the sheriff to verify that you are the record owner or the owner's authorized agent and that you otherwise appear entitled to relief. If that checks out, the sheriff serves a notice to immediately vacate on the occupants and puts you back in possession. Service can be hand delivery to an occupant or posting on the front door or entrance. The sheriff also attempts to verify the identities of everyone in the dwelling and notes them on the return of service, and may arrest anyone found there for trespass, outstanding warrants or other legal cause.

How long does it take?

The statute says the sheriff must act "without delay." It does not set a number of hours or days, and practice varies between sheriff's offices. We do not publish a turnaround figure here because there is no statutory one to publish — any guide quoting you a specific number of days for this process is describing one county's habits, not Florida law.

What it costs

Under § 82.036(5) the sheriff is entitled to the same fee for serving the notice to immediately vacate as for serving a writ of possession under § 30.231. You can separately ask the sheriff to stand by and keep the peace while you change the locks and move the occupants' belongings to or near the property line; the sheriff may charge a reasonable hourly rate for that, set locally, and you pay it. Neither figure is fixed statewide, so we do not quote one.

The penalty for getting it wrong

Section 82.036(6) creates a civil cause of action for wrongful removal. A person wrongfully removed may be restored to possession and may recover actual costs and damages, statutory damages equal to triple the fair market rent of the dwelling, court costs and reasonable attorney fees. The court is directed to advance the case on its calendar.

That is the whole risk calculus. The procedure is quick and cheap when you are right, and it is triple rent plus the other side's legal fees when you are wrong about whether the occupant was ever a tenant. Where there is genuine doubt, the eviction route is slower and safer.

The criminal side of the 2024 law

The same act that created § 82.036 added criminal exposure for the occupant, which is the part owners are usually unaware they can report.

The third row is the one that catches the organized version of this problem — the person who rents "your" house to a family who believe they are legitimate tenants. Those tenants are victims too, and their presence is exactly what turns a straightforward removal into a disputed one.

Do squatters get ownership after seven years?

Almost never, and not by simply living there. Adverse possession without color of title under § 95.18 requires seven years of actual continued possession and a tax record the occupant cannot fake: they must pay all outstanding taxes and matured special improvement lien installments within one year of entering possession, file a formal return with the county property appraiser within 30 days of doing so, and keep paying the taxes for every remaining year.

The statute also defines what counts as possession — the property must be protected by substantial enclosure, or cultivated, maintained or improved in a usual manner. And the return form the claimant files must itself carry a notice, in boldfaced capitals, stating that it does not create any interest enforceable by law in the property.

In practice an owner who pays their own property tax bill each year forecloses the whole theory. The realistic risk of a long occupancy is not losing title; it is damage, lost rent, and a harder removal once the occupant has documents to wave.

What actually changed, and what did not

This topic attracts a lot of out-of-date writing, so here is the current state of § 82.036 as of September 2026.

• 2024 (ch. 2024-44, effective 1 July 2024). Created § 82.036, added the criminal provisions above.
• 2025 (ch. 2025-112). Added language to the complaint form authorizing the sheriff to enter using reasonably necessary force, search the property and remove occupants; changed the perjury cross-reference to § 92.525. The same act broadened § 817.0311 from residential real property to all real property, and created § 82.037, a parallel removal remedy for commercial property.
• 2026 (ch. 2026-14). A clerical revision only — it labelled the blanks on the complaint form. Nothing about who qualifies or what the sheriff does changed.

So the eight conditions have been stable since 2024. If you are reading a page that describes a five-day notice, a court filing requirement, or a waiting period built into § 82.036, it is describing something other than the current statute.

The version of this problem you can actually prevent

Unlawful occupancy is overwhelmingly a vacant property problem. The units that get taken are the ones between tenants, in probate, mid-renovation, or owned from another state and checked on twice a year. The countermeasures are unglamorous: someone physically walking the property on a schedule, mail and utilities that do not advertise a vacancy, locks rekeyed at every turnover, and a listing presence that makes it obvious who the real manager is.

The other half is screening, because the disputes that get genuinely ugly are the ones where the occupant holds a document. A person who was let in and then stopped paying is a tenant, and that is an eviction, not a sheriff complaint — which is why who you let in decides how much of this chapter you ever have to read.

CIMCO manages vacant and occupied residential property across Broward County, including Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale. Occupancy checks, turnover rekeying and coordination with the sheriff's office when it comes to that are part of full-service management. If you own a property that is sitting empty, that is the moment to have someone on it.

This is general information, not legal advice. Florida landlord–tenant law is detailed and fact-specific, and statutes change. Verify anything you intend to act on against the current Florida Statutes Chapter 83, Part II, and consult a Florida attorney before serving notices or filing an eviction.