SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to the Is It Legit podcast. Uh today we are going to talk about uh landlord tenant laws or eviction laws. Uh Peter, have you heard about this guy? Uh Flash, not Gordon, but Flash Shelton. I have. Yeah. So this guy, he was a handyman contractor in California. Uh his father just passed recently in 2019 or 18, taking care of his mom, right? Father's gone. Uh, the the mom had a vacant property that he was trying to sell, actually. And then he gets a call. He gets a call saying that there are people living in his mom's house that they're trying to sell actively. So he actually had a YouTube channel uh with like handyman stuff, how to fix this or whatever. But he took it upon himself to actually learn a lot of the landlord tenant laws to step in for his mom to try and get these squatters out. So now, flash forward to today or recently, uh he has a show called Squatter Hunter. It literally has him and a group of his, you know, team members or posse or whatever that go into a squatter's house and try to out-squat them. And we can talk about that today. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's that's who he is.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Uh, I I just find it so crazy that we need to somehow, there's like squatters' rights, you know, and that there's there's situations where some of these squatters they could just go in go into a home and stay in the home rather than getting kicked out immediately. And these these are the permissive laws, the broken system that we want to kind of talk about and expose, um, because there are some insane stories around this.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So tell me, what is a squatter? What does that mean? And how does it apply to, in this case, real estate? Can you help explain that?

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Yeah, so there are two, there are various types of squatters. Number one are squatters who are staying in the home even after they were actually legitimate tenants at one point and they stopped making rent payments. Um, there's another squatter that just literally enters into the home, right? Uninvited. They just saw that there was a vacant house, which actually happens often. Um, I don't know how it is in the rest of the uh country, but definitely over here it happens often. You know, drug addicts, you know, people who are who are experiencing homelessness, they go into a home and they do drugs in the home, they mess up the home. In fact, I just had a situation where I was talking to a tenant or sorry, a land, uh, an owner of a home, and uh there was squatters in there and they couldn't take them out. They were doing a bunch of drugs, they put a bunch of junk and a bunch of crap that took them several thousand dollars to clean up and fix up, but the house was a total mess, right? So that's what a squatter is, and that's you know, somehow Washington protects these people, and I just find it very ridiculous. Uh so yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Um, so I'd like to actually give the people just some you know legal things about squatters, but I also have a couple well, I think there's a lot of stories here we're gonna share today because uh it's it goes from like mild to super wild. Uh, but I just got a call, Rosemary, if you're if you're watching this. So we just closed on a on a dental clinic conversion, you know, office space into a dental clinic. Um, and uh really nice client Rosemary. Her listing, the listing agent that helped us buy the property, Jay, called me yesterday. And I couldn't pick up because I had my kids, and then he says, John, you guys got a squatter. So I like dropped everything, picked up the phone. Jay, what's going on? Wait, what? Yeah, yeah. This is like 24 hours ago. Yeah, yeah. So, so so I'm like, Jay, talk to me. And apparently what happened was the and the guys, these guys, these stories are very, very common. So uh uh the previous the so the seller who sold a property had an employee an employee, a female employee, and apparently she got let go for whatever reason, but she had the office key and the main lobby key, which is locked at night, you know, for security reasons. She was going in there and she's been sleeping at night. We just found this out. Wow, yeah. So we're all like you know, everybody's up in a tizzy, like, okay, let's what is who is this? Every night, I think even when we were uh because we were under contract for months, right? Commercial deals take longer. She's been sleeping there the whole time. And to be fair, Rosemary should have, you know, uh, and she she is redoing the locks, I think, today, but the main lobby key that means all the tenants, you know, had exposure to that, right? So again, we'll do more stories, but guys, this is kind of a situation where it's like is it okay if I go into some of the legal stuff? Sure, yeah, yeah. Okay, but let's hear about it. So, yeah, this just happened. Um, okay, so why can somebody take possession of a property and why can't the police just kick them out? I mean, that's the logical thing that you would think. Uh, here's a quick AI overview from Google. Police cannot immediately remove squatters because they lack the authority to act as judges in determining who has a right to occupy a property. Once occupants establish residency, and there are criteria to residency, officers must treat the dispute as a civil matter, like a landlord-tenant issue, and avoid illegal lockouts and potential violence. Um, so okay, let's get deeper. The situation becomes a civil standoff for a few reasons. Number one, inability to verify leases. And this is actually a valid point. It's like, you know, even in the especially now in the age of AI and all this stuff, you could literally print a lease.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Like a fake lease.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Like a fake lease that that if you're smart enough and spend some time on it, could make it look very official. I could copy the you know, the official forms, they're out there everywhere, right? Squatters often present forged leases or fake utility bills to police. The a patrol officer has neither the time nor the forensic authority to determine if it's legitimate. That's a valid point. And uh eviction laws protecting tenants, state and local laws designed to protect legitimate tenants from rogue landlords, require a formal court ordered eviction. So it's a fair point. There are some landlords that bully tenants, you know, maybe don't fix what needs to be fixed, maybe you know, don't do maintenance on the building, and we can talk about that. But like slumlords, okay. Slumlords, and we've seen them. And of course, there's fear, fear of legal liability. If physic if police physically remove somebody who turned out to have established legal residency, that's a huge issue for them as well, right? Wow. So that's the legal framework.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Um and yeah, swatters. So that is the way that is a okay. So I get so they are using, so that's actually I I watched the um clip of a Flash Shelton episode where he went in, and so the what what Flash Shelton does is he goes in and then he just basically becomes a roommate of this squatter, and then he becomes the most obnoxious roommate. They're, I mean, they're like tatted up, they have armor, like they have guns as well, they have weapons, they have uh blowhorns, they are they just create such problems for this squatter because they're essentially doing the same thing. They're squatting the squatter, right? And then the the I remember there was one guy who uh came in, he was like, What are you doing in my house? Right. He's like, actually, um, this is not your house. You don't have legal residence. And the guy, he's in his room for like hours, right? And then he and then and then he's like, You have to show me. Uh Flash goes, you have to show me uh that you're a legal tenant. And the guy finally comes out, you know, after like saying, you know, go away, you know, I'm gonna call my lawyer, I'm gonna call the police. And Flash is like, Yeah, go call the police. Go ahead, call the police. He never does, but he does come out finally with a lease. And when he shows him the lease, Flash looks at it, he's like, This is clearly fake. This is all fake information. This is not like uh you have this, this, and this wrong. And Flash just he's seen a lot of this. And so it seems like that's what the the tenants are are doing because even if they can generate a fake lease, then they can they they would have to go into court, right? Because the cops, you know, they would they don't want that legal liability when they have to go into court. Of course, Seattle court dates are horrible. And we've unfortunately seen this multiple times where they're they delay so incredibly long because we're in Seattle, there's a lot of people living here, and um, I've just heard horror stories about you know, court dates being several months out, you know, three months out, four months out. Um, even though it's clearly a fake lease, and that's kind of like that process that the requirement of that process is the reason why these guys are able to stay there.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Sounds like all right, story time. So that's an example of somebody, you know, forcing them so uh forcing their way into a vacant property or a situation. Here's another example. Danny, I love you. This is I've been very intimately informed about what's happening. So we sold a duplex uh in Kent to a really good friend, Danny. Uh he's our lender, he's our VIP lender. There's a lot a lot of our deals. I call him every day for you know, just he's a really good guy. There is a special type of uh rent um subsidy. So the government helps you call it section eight. Section eight, you have to be, you know, certain criteria, income, whatever it is. If your rent is $2,000 a month, the state allows you to get covered, let's say $1,500 a month. You pay $500, the state pays $1,500, whatever the ratios are, right? So um it goes okay for the first, I think, six months to a year. It goes okay. And then the payment actually, as of last, I think it was a year ago, a year and a half ago, the payments did not stop, but they were dwindling. What do you mean? So you're you pay me $2,000 a month in rent. Well, now you've paid me $1,800. Oh, wait, because again, you still get the state subsidy of $1,500, right? But maybe instead of you paying $500 on top of that, which you're supposed to, you pay now $300 only. So now you've paid the rent, but it's it's short, right? So then a notice of you know, like a pay or vacate notice goes out in these situations. Well, uh all the notices were served, but the payment just keeps dwindling. So now you're short $500. Uh now there's duplexes too. So there's like two tenants kind of doing this. And both tenants were doing this? Yeah, yes. And if there's layers to the so they we uh Danny found out that they were related. Oh my god. So now they're in concert, they're working together, right? And um so we, you know, he calls me, da-da-da-da-da. I'm like, you know, he's 2,000 behind, 3,000 behind. Like keeps it keeps on accruing. So they try to serve an eviction notice, but because of the legality of the partial rent being paid, they couldn't actually start like the actual eviction process. And on top of that, and I'm kind of like paraphrasing because there's a lot that happened, but because of that delay, and on top of that delay, King County, as an entire county, has two judges that serve evictions. Oh my gosh, two, like two judges for the entire county. So we imagine how long it takes to get your case seen, right? Like the estimate that we got from a lawyer who's like a pro at this, it's like, oh, minimum, uh a year plus. Wow, and he couldn't even file the that because of the partial rent situation. If he had got no rent, it would have been easier for him. But because they paid partially, now they're negotiating. There's a thing called cash for keys. It's like if you want somebody to get out, maybe you actually give them some money to get out early or on time. These are all things that happen all the time. So, and then on top of that, as that was happening, there's start there's vandalism now. So Danny would put up cameras, right? Because he wants to know what because police were called multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Oh, these guys were in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And um, you could literally see the guy going up to the security camera, getting a bat, and like whacking the camera. Yes, and no guys, think about it. This is your property, right? This is your mom's property, this is your dad's property, whatever. I mean, but people are doing this to you, you know. And uh there was various issues left and right, and then one tenant did actually move out. I think the bottom tenant moved out, but they were still using or entering the property, so basically acting like a squatter, and to cap it all off, he would do things like he would go number two on the floor of the house? Of the house. He would go back in and you know, because they were trying to get him evicted, and it's like either we're gonna file the eviction on you, or you can pay the the back rent, right? Because the state, the section eight, will allow you to get uh back rent. He just goes number two. Like imagine that's happening to your property, right? So I'll I'll finish there, but these are some of the things that uh this law allows people to do, and it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

That's just that's so crazy. Uh my uncle had a very similar situation, and my uncle it they were doing all types of drugs, and you could clearly see them because we put in cameras as well. They took down the cameras, they we locked the doors, we changed the locks, they just broke in. They just straight broke in. We have it on camera. Police didn't do anything, yeah. It was like nothing, and it's just crazy. Like that they could do this, they were uh breaking into the laundry room, they were like vandalizing it, you know, doing drugs in it. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy. And it, you know, it took us several months for us to get them removed because of the court system, right? Because of the protections. How is this legal?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

You know what I mean? I mean, I know you have some other stories there, you know, um, that were national, I think national news, but yeah, yeah, and it happened in Seattle, like the greater Seattle.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

So have you heard of the guy in Rainier Valley who the used the owner's property to do Airbnb while he stopped making rent payments? Yeah, tell us more because uh it's wild. It's wild. The guy's name was Jason Roth. He is the owner. Uh his tenant stopped making payments and then listed the bait his own basement um space on Airbnb for $150 a night. This guy, uh, he obviously and of course it wasn't approved because he wasn't he didn't actually have official, like he he probably forged it and couldn't prove accurate ownership information. So the Airbnb basically said no. Um, but the owner, Jason, had to actually sleep in a van outside of his home because he couldn't uh pay the mortgage. He's continuing to pay the mortgage while this guy's not making uh rent payments. So he couldn't make a mortgage payment and stay in a rental. So he's staying in a van in his own house, not being able to enter into his own house. And um, of course, the occupant, this this uh squatter, dragged it on in the courts and um, you know, it moved into a civil eviction process. They delayed it so long. Um, they the guy the tenant stayed in there for about a year and stopped making payments for 10 months, okay, uh, fighting this. And so, I mean, that it's just so crazy. Uh there's another story. Uh, do you hear about the guy in Bellevue? It was a Korean guy, saying Kim, who stayed in a guy's home after not making payments. Have you heard of this guy? Uh, tell me more. Tell me more. So the guy, he's been in the home since the summer since basically 2022, and he finally got evicted in 2025. He dragged it on with the courts. So he basically he had a he was a legal tenant at some point, but he just stopped making payments. And um use and using all types of court systems, he was actually he actually got taxpayer, like our money, taxpayer money, uh, aid, and somehow he was able to get um his back rent covered nearly $90,000.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I've never heard of that. Yep. Taxpayer money for the rent that he didn't pay.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yes. Somehow he he found loopholes in the tax system. He used lawyers, whatever. He had his whole family living in this home, not making payments, while the owner had to make uh his, you know, obviously mortgage payments. And what the craziest part about all this is that this was not his first offense. In fact, just a year before, well, just years before in 2020 to 2022, okay, so he moved from one place to the other. He actually did this to a previous landlord, and so he is actually called a serial squatter.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Dang, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

So, and it's embarrassing that because the guy is Korean, but somehow the Washington eviction laws are so screwed up that they are able, like these horrible like people are able to, you know, use a system to be able to stay in homes while the owner suffers greatly. And this is not an isolated incident. This is one of so many incidents. It happened to my uncle. Uh, it's happened to us. You know, we've had we have a lot of rentals, like it's happened to us. And I've had tenants stay in the home for four months, even though completely, I mean, they were making up all types of lies and stories saying that they're not fixing this and fixing that while because we're not that kind of people. Like, as soon as there's an issue, we immediately fix it. But they started making up stories about problems that didn't exist, and they also, even though we try to fix the problem, they would not allow us to get into the home saying, Oh, my kid is sick. You know how many times this kid was sick or their her kids were sick during this eviction process? And then not only that, when there was a court date, she then said, Oh, my kids are sick. So they delayed the court date another month. And somehow, even though the eviction laws in Georgia, this is where our property is, um, allows for us to evict someone within seven days. Somehow, this girl exploited the system where they stayed for four months. Actually, I think it was five months in total with no rent payment and stayed. So, how broken is this system? How is this legal? Where is the law? Where is justice? And which is why Flash Shelton exists. Why do we need people like Flash Shelton? Isn't that what the police are for?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

It is so crazy because for every story that we do tell, I mean, there's there's like five or ten more, you know. Like I can like because we are landlords, you know, we feel like a landlord should obviously keep to to his or her bargain, which is that you give people a safe uh place to to live and and to have a family and and these things. Because we're all, I mean, the numbers and statistics show that we're just slowly heading into a renter economy, right? Homes are unaffordable, mortgage, you know. So it's once you fulfill that obligation, you know, when we invest in real estate, we are actually now looking in other states, right? Because of the landlord tenant laws that are more favorable. So one of the big criteria that we have on our spreadsheet is that is a state landlord, you know, tenant friendly? And it sounds harsh, but how quickly can we evict somebody due to non payment? Due to non payment. But that's that's normal, right? Shouldn't that be normal? If you don't make payments, you should not stay in the Home. Like, I will love all my tenants. Like, we even throw parties for them. Like, we take care of them and sometimes act as counselors. And I've I just had somebody, you know, pass away in one of our units, and we helped the family, you know, figure things out. And like it's it's a it's an honor in in in many ways. But if you don't pay, then you should be able to get kicked out. If you don't pay. I mean, there's tenants who literally will go into the Seattle market thinking that they don't even have to, you know, they they can uh now they can't do it forever because it should show up on their credit report, but it can take so long. It could literally bankrupt people, you know. I mean, if you're making a payment of four to seven thousand a month on a property and you have to pay the backlog of that for two to three years, that could potentially wipe somebody out.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

So it's a big problem. Again, it's like like I just I'm so surprised that this is legal that um we allow this, that there's two eviction judges. Who like how is that possible? How is it possible that that you know you can allow someone to have a court date three to four months out when the person's clearly not living there legally, right? And so we don't invest in Seattle. We would we if the eviction laws were better, 100%. I can tell you all there's a lot of uh investors who would be willing to buy homes here, create more rental opportunities, that's helping us with, you know, obviously the lack of rentals that are out here, thus a lot of owners are increasing the prices because there's just not a lot of rental demand. Like if I put a rental out in Seattle, like you'll you'll get a lot of demand because there's not that many rentals, right? Uh, but a lot of people don't want to invest in Seattle, they don't want to invest in Washington because of all these protections. And there have been so many situations where landlords would fight in court, continuing to have to pay their mortgage for years before they could finally evict someone. Even squatters, okay, people who are totally trespassing, cops go in, they try to kick them out, and they're like, oh, we are valid tenants. They create fake leases. I mean, there's got to be better laws to be able to kick these people out. So I I just think the whole system is so broken. The law, I mean, why are we paying, you know, taxpayer money to create to for justice when justice is not actually being served here, right? If our court systems are so messed up, what are we paying them for? You know, what are we, what are we like, what's our taxpayer money going for? We're we're paying for order, we're paying for our cities to be clean, our you know, our schools to run uh function well, and we just don't feel like that that is what is happening. So it's very upsetting, and and you know, for people who who own homes and have experienced this, I mean it's just you're sometimes just baffled by the laws, uh, especially here in our state, and you hear the same thing in you know California and Oregon, it's just they're so permissive that it is not like the laws are not even being upheld.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

I mean, that also reminds me of the recent, you know, uh situation in California during COVID where you know people were just allowed to steal stuff, and it would have to be above a certain dollar amount. I think it was like 900 or $1,000 of merchandise before the police would do anything. So you literally have, and there's like skits about this now. There's like TV shows that kind of talk about this where you know, kid comes in, swipes some phones, jewelry, whatever it is, they couldn't even touch him, right? So this whole permissive kind of you know way of dealing with these problems, it's really hard for me to see as an owner of things, property, you know, somebody who has pride in the area. I mean, I came to this area uh from Hawaii, and when I came here, I remember taking the bus, you know, because I had no car back then, it was like 2008. I remember taking the bus, getting out of Seattle, and you're like, oh wow, you know, there's people walking by, and I went to the library, you know, check out the library. Just so it was so vibrant, and it's just not that way anymore. I mean, everyone knows this. It's like everyone knows this. Like, I'm on, you know, my head's on a swivel, you know, because if I'm there with my friends or my my wife, like I'm just like, okay, what's you know, I'm like looking around just to see what's happening. So it's it's uh it's sad, but I think that maybe the pendulum has to swing even further, you know, toward that unsavory way to maybe wake people up. But as we get less and less owners overall, because of the economy, you know, maybe that'll continue to get to get worse because people are like, well, I don't care. It's not, I don't even have a property, right? So I mean, uh who knows how it's gonna pan out, but it's definitely a sad sight. How long?

SPEAKER_02 27:30

I mean, how long are we gonna suffer as Seattleites? You know, you're you're totally right. I we don't go as people who live in Washington, who's pretty close to see, we're about 30 minutes from Seattle. We don't often go to Seattle, we don't take our families there. And there's a reason why. It's because that place is so permissive, and we've allowed so much crime, and you know, just there's there's a lot of people who are you know on drugs, homeless, just going around, you know, the talking, screaming in the middle of the street. Like it just becomes such an ugly city. And again, what what is the justification on this permissiveness? It makes me angry. Like, how do you justify this? Like, all of these behaviors to to not take someone to jail or have no, not even a slap on the hand for stealing uh uh less than a thousand dollars worth of merchandise. Like, what is your justification here on this? Like, where's the justice? It's just so insane. And uh, I know a lot of people are angry at this, and and I want to know, I want to hear the other side. Like, how who's voting this this this stuff in? How like what what are you what what's your justification on this? How do you fight this? It's just so crazy. So I'm um I'm definitely emotionally charged about this, you know, because it's just I love living here, but I don't live in Seattle, you know. I live in uh a much better area, um, you know, away from Seattle, and a lot of people that's why the Seattle market has gotten hit so hard. It's been hit hard, you know. While the rest of you know Snowmish County and you know, the east side, like Bellevue, Kirkland, all those places, they appreciated insane amounts in value where the Seattle market went dead. It's been dead even through this ridiculous like sub three percent, and the market was so hot, Seattle remained dead. It's actually remained flat because who wants to live there anymore?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

So, yeah, I remember Antifa. I remember all that stuff, you know, when people were laying down on the streets and it was televised, and people were asking me from like Hawaii or other states, like, are you guys okay? Are you guys sick? I'm like, it's just Seattle, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

You mean Chaz?

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

This was like where they were like creating their own, like during COVID, they were creating their own like city or whatever with a bunch of drug users and and homeless people and cops who are doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

With guns, I mean, people are like waving guns in the street. I, you know, and and like your point, people have spoken with their money, their keys, right? They have moved out of the area. And and just so people understand, uh, the landlord tenant laws, there's you know, federal guidelines or state guidelines, but there's also what's called overlays in each city. So you take all the rules that you already have that everybody has to abide by, and then each city like Seattle can do an overlay of additional rules and requirements. And that's the the you guys can Google this, but that's the reason why it got so ridiculously crazy that it's like I can't even have an investment property. Like we were actively telling people to not put your money there in Seattle. So anyway, uh I, you know, I do think it's political. Um, I think it does get votes, and um unfortunately the whole packaging of like the left and right is just you have to be in the group, and I think people rather would belong into a group than to call out those things and be, you know, kicked out of the group. So I think they just latch on, and that's just how I see it.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

So yeah. Well, thank you guys for watching. Um, you know, we're gonna be talking a lot more about what's going on in our city as insiders, as people who live here who we're in real estate, we own property. Um, you know, we we definitely want to talk about some of these issues and expose some of them. Uh, and so I don't know if the algorithm is gonna like it. I don't know if you know the algorithm's pushing against like people exposing this kind of stuff, but we're gonna talk about it because we want to uh show people what's actually going on and how ridiculous this is. So thank you for watching. Please subscribe to our channel. We just hit over 500 subscribers. Um, we have um, you know, some of our videos are actually, you know, getting a lot of views. And so um we appreciate you guys supporting. Please like the video, help us with our algorithm, and stay tuned for the next video.