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Under the new statute, suspected squatters receive immediate criminal citations and are required to present a valid lease within three days. Should law enforcement determine the rental agreement to be fraudulent, the matter escalates from a misdemeanor to a felony offense. This swift mechanism is designed to thwart squatters from lingering indefinitely in properties they do not own.
Moreover, the law expands the purview for reporting squatters to include homeowners' associations and neighbors, creating a collaborative community effort against unlawful occupancy.