Sell a House With Squatters in Pompano Beach, FL

Empty houses in Pompano Beach do not stay empty. A Garden Isles house vacant since a parent died in the spring. A Pompano Beach Highlands rental between tenants. A beach-side condo closed for the summer while the owner is up north. A neighbor notices lights, then a car, then a lease that nobody ever signed. The owner, often living in another state, hears about it from that neighbor or from a City Code Compliance notice and assumes the only way out is months in court. Since 2024, Florida law gives owners a faster route for people who never had a right to be there. It has conditions, and it is not for everyone in the house.

Pompano Beach Cash Buyers buys houses with unauthorized occupants across Pompano Beach and North Broward, as-is, with the people still inside. After closing the removal, the cleanout and the repairs are ours. This page lays out the exact conditions of Florida Statute 82.036, who still has to go through Broward County Court, what to do and not do in the meantime, how we price a house we cannot enter, and how the sale runs if the house belongs to an estate.

Florida Statute 82.036, passed in 2024 and amended in 2025, lets a property owner ask the sheriff to remove an unauthorized person by filing a sworn complaint instead of an eviction lawsuit. It applies only when three things are all true. First, the person is not a current or former tenant. Second, there is no pending litigation about the property between the owner and the occupant. Third, the property is not open to the public. If any one of those fails, the statute does not apply, and the owner who uses it anyway is the one exposed. For Pompano Beach, the complaint goes to the Broward Sheriff's Office, which publishes the form. Because the law has already been amended once, check the current version before you sign a sworn complaint, or let us handle it after closing.

The sheriff route is for strangers. Anyone who was ever a tenant goes through county court, even if the lease ended years ago. The same caution applies to someone a tenant let in who stayed, and to a relative of a late owner who moved in without the estate's permission; those cases usually need a court filing of their own kind, and an attorney decides which. For Pompano Beach that means Broward County Court at the Central Courthouse, 201 SE 6th Street in Fort Lauderdale, or the North Regional Courthouse at 1600 W Hillsboro Blvd in Deerfield Beach. Getting the category wrong is the expensive mistake: an owner who treats a former tenant as a squatter can end up defending that choice. When we buy, the category question becomes ours to answer with counsel.

Document from the street: photos, dates, the neighbor's account, any vehicles. Call the Pompano Beach police and ask for a report; a report supports a sworn complaint later and is useful to us either way. Pull your deed and any old lease from Broward County's official records so you can show the occupants were never tenants. Do not accept money from anyone inside, which can look like rent. Do not shut off utilities, pull doors or change locks while people are in the house. The statute exists so owners do not have to do those things, and if an occupant turns out to have been a tenant, self-help can create liability. If you plan to sell, you can stop at the documentation step. We buy the house occupied and take the lawful route after closing.

A squatted house is priced without an interior visit. We price from the exterior, from what you know about the house before it was occupied, from the structure's age and type, and from an assumption of real interior damage, since unauthorized occupancy can mean stripped fixtures, broken plumbing, tampered wiring, trash and animals. Pompano Beach's housing stock has a median build year of 1974, so we also assume the roof, panel and plumbing are original unless you tell us otherwise. The written offer spells out these assumptions and carries no inspection contingency: what we find after the house is cleared stays with us. If City Code Compliance has posted the house or opened a case over its condition, Statute 162.06(5) requires written disclosure at sale, and we take the case and any recorded lien at closing.

If the owner died and the house did not pass by lady-bird deed, trust or joint ownership, the family usually needs authority from the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit's probate division in Broward County before anyone can sell or file as the owner's agent. Smaller or older estates may qualify for Florida's summary administration, a short court proceeding whose order can transfer the house, available at $150,000 or less for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, or when the death was more than two years ago. Larger estates use formal administration, where a sale may need a court order unless the will grants a power of sale. We sign with the personal representative or heirs, contingent on that authority, and close once it is in place. You sign where you live.

Send the address, how long the house has been empty, what you know about the people inside, and whether a police report exists. We look at the exterior within a day or two and deliver a written offer within 24 hours of the visit. When you accept, the Broward County title company runs the search, orders any payoffs and closes in about a week once title is clear, or on a later date you choose. We pay the customary closing costs, and there is no commission. At closing the occupants, the cleanout and the repairs become the responsibility of Pompano Beach Cash Buyers. A sale does not undo anything done before it. If the house is in Deerfield Beach, Lighthouse Point or elsewhere in North Broward, the same process applies.

We buy houses in Pompano Beach for any reason, any condition, or any challenge

Every link below is a page written for that situation in Pompano Beach and Broward County.