Five minutes of hate news

[Marduk]

Literally you just keep giving more examples with threats lol. The whole point of adverse possession is that it's not done by threat or force or deception.

It is done by deception. It is fully reliant on the current owner not being informed of the fact that adverse possession is happening, particularly if the property is valuable.

A doesn't follow from B. Man you remain bad at this argument thing.

Yes it does, you acting obtuse doesn't change that.

No, I don't recognize the authority of the state to tax. So I don't care if you pay it or not, it's completely orthogonal to the question of who owns a property.

Well then it would make more sense in the world of your imagination, but in real world the state does tax property and gets very mad if you don't pay it, so its not unreasonable to expect some level of favor and recognition in return.
In your world of imagination, it would indeed be prudent to invest the money saved on paying taxes by improving the property with some minefields, an autonomous gun turret perhaps.

Though it does bring us to another moral reason for adverse possession: repossession after state theft. The state steals land all the time (eminent domain for but one example among many). After it steals the land, who owns it? The original land owner? Forever? No, at some point, while they retain a claim against the state for compensation, the land itself is not theirs any more, as others have mixed their labor with it so much.

Now that's pure fantasy. Why do you give squatters more right than the state then?
Its bad enough when the state has such powers to abuse, i don't want every random dude to have them too.
Yes, if a state (non-bandit one at least) steals land under some excuse, good or not, at least it has to pay at least a reasonable compensation.
If squatters had to aswell, that would really curb this bullshit as the profit margin of doing it maliciously would get far worse.
Also paying taxes for land is mixing labor with it, as money is something people exchange for labor and other way around.

Again, look at you, trying to slip in bad analogies! It's so cute, and wrong. "By subterfuge" immediately disclaims any adverse possession rights. Adverse possession needs to be open, blatant, and without violence or the threat of it.

Considering that there is no due diligence standard for squatter to try find out who is the legal owner of the land and if the local government knows and to make a good enough good faith attempt to inform this person of the ongoing attempt at squatting, that is a limited form of subterfuge.
We're not talking "dude disappeared from the face of the planet because he's a retired international black market dealer" situations, in general if the government wanted to send him a tax bill, they would know what address to send it to, and if the government wanted to take him to court, it would probably be able to make him show up there.

If we didn't have abandoned land in the middle of cities, then there's be no issue with the rule, as no one would be able to blatantly occupy and improve land for well over a decade in the middle of a city.

So lets at least get the terms clear. By abandoned you don't mean abandoned, as in no one cares about holding or claiming the property in legal terms.
You mean physically unguarded, or at least, unsurveilled, in some minimal level. The minimum for ensuring a property claim is someone looking at the property personally or by technological means every few years at minimum and being able to go through efforts and expanses of pushing through a not so simple legal procedure if someone is attempting adverse possession.
AKA creeping semi-anarchy rules. Which is worse than both state and anarchy.

Also, why should the population of a city pay compensation to a person who isn't bothered by someone openly squatting on what was his land? If he doesn't care about the land, why should anyone care about his compensation?

Is he paying taxes? He is? Then apparently he cares to the point of giving the state money to keep his claim. Like it or not, if people didn't have to pay those, they would be more than willing to spend a small portion of that money to hire an agent to check on their property instead. But hey, why expect the state to do anything useful for the taxes paid to it.

 

[Abhorsen]

It is done by deception. It is fully reliant on the current owner not being informed of the fact that adverse possession is happening, particularly if the property is valuable.

That's not deception. And it isn't reliant on the owner not knowing, but the owner not caring.

Well then it would make more sense in the world of your imagination, but in real world the state does tax property and gets very mad if you don't pay it, so its not unreasonable to expect some level of favor and recognition in return.
In your world of imagination, it would indeed be prudent to invest the money saved on paying taxes by improving the property with some minefields, an autonomous gun turret perhaps.

Oh, are we going to the real world? Well in the real world, the rule exists, so deal with it? Oh, wait, that's not a good enough argument? You want an argument based in morality, not what current laws say? Then deal with me arguing from morality. You get one or the other, and if you want to argue from simply what laws exist, expect me just to point to the law that exists and go 'tough'.

Also, it is absolutely unreasonable to trust the state with anything. It's frankly ludicrious to trust them to do anything but take the worst possible option at every occurrence.

Now that's pure fantasy. Why do you give squatters more right than the state then?
Its bad enough when the state has such powers to abuse, i don't want every random dude to have them too.
Yes, if a state (non-bandit one at least) steals land under some excuse, good or not, at least it has to pay at least a reasonable compensation.
If squatters had to aswell, that would really curb this bullshit.
Also paying taxes for land is mixing labor with it, as money is something people exchange for labor and other way around.

Because the method used is radically different? The state simply doesn't make use of this right at all. They just take straight out, no mixing of labor involved until after they have committed theft. Had they just started building the highway through a house, and literally no one complained for a decade while they were doing the construction, then yeah, they could argue homesteading as well.

Also, no, paying taxes is not mixing labor with the land. I've no issue with counting, say, paying someone to make a well as counting. Or paying someone to mow grass. The issue is yes, there was labor and land, but no mixing of the two. The mixing of labor and the land is a creative process. Your labor becomes part of the land, and that's where the ownership comes from. But with taxes? There is no creation, only theft.

This labor is why this isn't theft: basically, by combination of neglect/abandonment + constant input of labor by the homesteader, they've converted property with their labor.

And this principle applies in all cases. It's why "the Native Americans used to own it" doesn't apply, but "Some thugs just broke into my house" does apply: property rights fade unless kept up. Oh, they fade very slowly, and require little upkeep, but they do require some. It's the same way that your sweatshirt becomes your girlfriends, the same way that tupperware your forgot at a friends house a year ago becomes their tupperware.

So lets at least get the terms clear. By abandoned you don't mean abandoned, as in no one cares about holding or claiming the property in legal terms.
You mean physically unguarded, or at least, unsurveilled, in some minimal level. The minimum for ensuring a property claim is someone looking at the property personally or by technological means every few years at minimum and being able to go through efforts and expanses of lodging a not so simple legal procedure if someone is attempting adverse possession.
AKA creeping semi-anarchy rules. Which is worse than both state and anarchy.

This isn't creeping semi-anarchy rules. This is how the world works. See directly above for examples.

Is he paying taxes? He is? Then apparently he cares to the point of giving the state money to keep his claim. Like it or not, if people didn't have to pay those, they would be more than willing to spend a small portion of that money to hire an agent to check on their property instead. But hey, why expect the state to do anything useful for the taxes paid to it.

No. Paying an extortionist gets you no credence. If he wanted to pay an agent, he could have paid that agent. Or, you know, made a once a decade trip to look at his property, then a once a decade ask of the cops to kick squatters off his property. I can pay the local mob boss what he calls "Taxes on the Empire State Building" and get an equivalent amount of moral claim to the Empire State Building through that payment.

Also, yeah, you shouldn't expect an extortionist to protect your investment. They generally don't.

 

[LordsFire]

'Adverse Possession' makes sense only in cases where there is not clear law-breaking involved in getting that possession.

If you're breaking into a house that you have not been invited into, and is locked, you're committing a crime. That crime should not enable your financial gain.

If there isn't a fence, clear property line, or even a 'no trespassing sign' on property, and somebody doesn't check on it for more than a decade, it's not unreasonable for someone to make use of the functionally-abandoned property as there's no clear reason not to. I'm not so keen on them getting to take ownership away from you, though.

At a minimum, if someone is going to get property of a land through such means, they should owe the former proprietor the taxes paid on the property for the period they were using it in order to gain possession of it.

 

[Marduk]

That's not deception. And it isn't reliant on the owner not knowing, but the owner not caring.

It would be if there was a due diligence standard to try inform the legal owner.
But not knowing is in practice as good as not caring, as people can't care about an even they don't know of. If someone hacked your savings account you also wouldn't care if you didn't know, but you would care upon finding out.

Oh, are we going to the real world? Well in the real world, the rule exists, so deal with it? Oh, wait, that's not a good enough argument? You want an argument based in morality, not what current laws say? Then deal with me arguing from morality. You get one or the other, and if you want to argue from simply what laws exist, expect me just to point to the law that exists and go 'tough'.

Also, it is absolutely unreasonable to trust the state with anything. It's frankly ludicrious to trust them to do anything but take the worst possible option at every occurrence.

Welp, then we disagree on morality, as i think that for all the downsides of anarchy, the one thing worse than anarchy is anarcho-tyranny. If the state won't protect property rights, fine, then it should also not protect any rights of squatters either, including life.
At least the situation is clear then, we are back in dark ages or whatever, man the walls when leaving property, bring catapults when coming back after a long time if you forgot to.

Because the method used is radically different? The state simply doesn't make use of this right at all. They just take straight out, no mixing of labor involved until after they have committed theft. Had they just started building the highway through a house, and literally no one complained for a decade while they were doing the construction, then yeah, they could argue homesteading as well.

The state would have had a duty to make a honest effort to try contact the legal owner. Squatters don't.

Also, no, paying taxes is not mixing labor with the land. I've no issue with counting, say, paying someone to make a well as counting. Or paying someone to mow grass. The issue is yes, there was labor and land, but no mixing of the two. The mixing of labor and the land is a creative process. Your labor becomes part of the land, and that's where the ownership comes from. But with taxes? There is no creation, only theft.

That is applicable to claiming frontier property with no previous claims or status, legal or practical.
Paying taxes affects the legal status of the property rather than physical status, but it is an effort.
Abandoned property implies that at some point in the past someone did invest labor into the land and it was private property which then was given, sold or inherited, unless the owner died without anyone to inherit or a will, in which case fair game, though usually state takes that then.
Is it really private property if there is a time limit on it conditional on what you use the property for?
Even in China state gives 99 year leases.
In the anarcho-tyranny, apparently it's much less.
Hence, anarcho-tyranny is even worse than tyranny.

This labor is why this isn't theft: basically, by combination of neglect/abandonment + constant input of labor by the homesteader, they've converted property with their labor.

By what right a random person can judge whether i'm neglecting my property or not?
What if i planted a tree on the property?
Maybe i want my grandson to sell the tree for profit as old lumber, quite valuable. Maybe its a suboptimal business practice. But it's not some guy's place to rate my private property management and business practices.
I don't get to steal someone's PC because i think he's not utilizing its processor cycles optimally. Even if i'm right about it.

And this principle applies in all cases. It's why "the Native Americans used to own it" doesn't apply, but "Some thugs just broke into my house" does apply: property rights fade unless kept up. Oh, they fade very slowly, and require little upkeep, but they do require some. It's the same way that your sweatshirt becomes your girlfriends, the same way that tupperware your forgot at a friends house a year ago becomes their tupperware.

Native Americans fought over land all the time and had no notarized land registries. If you want to go back to that system, at least live with the full extent of the implications.
You can have anarchy or land ownership under a sovereign who cares about who owns which piece of land and whether they pay him taxes for it, combining parts of both systems will give a terrible result, that's my general opinion on this.
Tracking property or objects of little value is not something to expect great attention from either by owners or the state. The same argument also applies to truly "virgin land" in frontier history. But if the land in question is in a suburb and a decently sized "homestead" worth of it has a market price equivalent to fuck you money in at least some parts of the world, funny business can and will happen and whoever runs the city should handle this.
And the cases mentioned definitely refer to funny business.

This isn't creeping semi-anarchy rules. This is how the world works. See directly above for examples.

Yes, anarcho-tyranny is how some parts of the world work now, and people complain about it.

No. Paying an extortionist gets you no credence. If he wanted to pay an agent, he could have paid that agent. Or, you know, made a once a decade trip to look at his property, then a once a decade ask of the cops to kick squatters off his property. I can pay the local mob boss what he calls "Taxes on the Empire State Building" and get an equivalent amount of moral claim to the Empire State Building through that payment.

Also, yeah, you shouldn't expect an extortionist to protect your investment. They generally don't.

Why do we have to larp that we live in a frontier with pre-modern communications and record keeping while we clearly don't? Can't we automate the whole "squatting is illegal and cops should enforce it because it is implied that people don't like having their real estate stolen" thing?
Do you have to go to cops every year to refresh your name on the "i don't want to be murdered" list and the "i don't want my shit to be stolen" list?
If it was necessary i assure you few people would forget to do so and horror would ensue.

'Adverse Possession' makes sense only in cases where there is not clear law-breaking involved in getting that possession.

If you're breaking into a house that you have not been invited into, and is locked, you're committing a crime. That crime should not enable your financial gain.

If there isn't a fence, clear property line, or even a 'no trespassing sign' on property, and somebody doesn't check on it for more than a decade, it's not unreasonable for someone to make use of the functionally-abandoned property as there's no clear reason not to. I'm not so keen on them getting to take ownership away from you, though.

At a minimum, if someone is going to get property of a land through such means, they should owe the former proprietor the taxes paid on the property for the period they were using it in order to gain possession of it.

It made a lot of sense in pre-modern times when communications and records were spotty at best. The case where no one had any good idea who could possibly own a part of land legally was not so rare.
Now, with databases and mountains of paperwork, if taxes are being paid especially, usually there is no doubt, especially in those drama heavy cases.
For it to work even remotely fairly, the squatters would have to make a due diligence note to local government who would attempt to contact the owner about the matter, and a legally binding promise to abandon the property and restore it to previous state if the absentee owner does show up or gets contacted successfully and declares such a wish within a given timeframe. That would massively cut back on the shady shit being attempted this way.

And speaking of funny business, with the kind of money on the line in claiming city real estate, it's far from unlikely that a potential target property would have an anonymous owner of a few 100$ bills suggest to some "local youths" that he needs the doors, windows, signs and fences of a particular currently unattended property vandalized. No names or reasons need to be given, only said bills.
And with some luck they may even happen to do it for free like in some cases.

 

[Abhorsen]

Welp, then we disagree on morality, as i think that for all the downsides of anarchy, the one thing worse than anarchy is anarcho-tyranny. If the state won't protect property rights, fine, then it should also not protect any rights of squatters either, including life.

You don't know what anarcho tyranny is is you think this is anarcho tyranny.

This is simply recognizing how ownership works in practice.

The state would have had a duty to make a honest effort to try contact the legal owner. Squatters don't.

Shockingly, there's a reason we put a bunch of controls on the state that we don't on regular citizens: the state is much worse and does much worse, and also doesn't have individual rights. It's not a person, it's a violent thug that (hopefully) deters other violent thugs.

By what right a random person can judge whether i'm neglecting my property or not?
What if i planted a tree on the property?
Maybe i want my grandson to sell the tree for profit as old lumber, quite valuable. Maybe its a suboptimal business practice. But it's not some guy's place to rate my private property management and business practices.
I don't get to steal someone's PC because i think he's not utilizing its processor cycles optimally. Even if i'm right about it.

It's not about optimality, it's about abandonment. If the original owner uses it or not, that's what counts (specifically when they used it last). Look, there's a moral backing to this rule, which is all based on the mixing of labor with land vs. its abandonment, with the platonic ideal as judged by an all-knowing fair arbiter going into "How much labor was invested by the homesteader" and "how long since the last time the previous owner actually did stuff with this land". Now obviously, if you are raising trees on the land, that's not abandoning the land, though you might not be there for a while. Obviously, here, we'd ideally use some other criteria, but the law implementing the rule isn't perfect, so there's some flaws. But that's not a problem with the base morality of the principle, that's an issue with the implementation. In an urban environment, I think f10-15 years is plenty.

Native Americans fought over land all the time and had no notarized land registries. If you want to go back to that system, at least live with the full extent of the implications.
You can have anarchy or land ownership under a sovereign who cares about who owns which piece of land and whether they pay him taxes for it, combining parts of both systems will give a terrible result, that's my general opinion on this.
Tracking property or objects of little value is not something to expect great attention from either by owners or the state. The same argument also applies to truly "virgin land" in frontier history. But if the land in question is in a suburb and a decently sized "homestead" worth of it has a market price equivalent to fuck you money in at least some parts of the world, funny business can and will happen and whoever runs the city should handle this.
And the cases mentioned definitely refer to funny business.

You arguments are "Because there was no land registry, the Native Americans didn't own the land," which is laughable; that there are different rules for property of different value, which falls the Occam's razor test (not fatal, but not a good thing to fail regardless); and a constant appeal to the state.

All of these are bad arguments.

Why do we have to larp that we live in a frontier with pre-modern communications and record keeping while we clearly don't? Can't we automate the whole "squatting is illegal and cops should enforce it because it is implied that people don't like having their real estate stolen" thing?

If the land isn't abandoned, then someone will be able to kick someone off (or even make an attempt) within 15 years. And I'm fine with the cops doing it independently (they should be), I just note that if they don't, then it sucks to be the previous owner. They should have actually put work into their property to keep it as theirs.

Yes, anarcho-tyranny is how some parts of the world work now, and people complain about it.

"Anarcho tyranny is your girlfriend taking your sweatshirt"

 

[Zachowon]

How about we make a standard that the squatter has to attempt to contact the owner of the property, and have valid evidence of it.

Or we just allow anyone to be able to shoot who ever enters thier property even if they claim to live there and we just take land by killing the owners.

 

[Marduk]

You don't know what anarcho tyranny is is you think this is anarcho tyranny.

This is simply recognizing how ownership works in practice.

No it doesn't. Possession is not ownership. Occupation is also not ownership. You could argue possession at best here.

Shockingly, there's a reason we put a bunch of controls on the state that we don't on regular citizens: the state is much worse and does much worse, and also doesn't have individual rights. It's not a person, it's a violent thug that (hopefully) deters other violent thugs.

A violent thug is also a person. That's the kind of situation we are dealing with here. The state nor morality should protect thugs and sneaky assholes, even if they steal sneakily, without violence.

It's not about optimality, it's about abandonment. If the original owner uses it or not, that's what counts (specifically when they used it last). Look, there's a moral backing to this rule, which is all based on the mixing of labor with land vs. its abandonment, with the platonic ideal as judged by an all-knowing fair arbiter going into "How much labor was invested by the homesteader" and "how long since the last time the previous owner actually did stuff with this land". Now obviously, if you are raising trees on the land, that's not abandoning the land, though you might not be there for a while. Obviously, here, we'd ideally use some other criteria, but the law implementing the rule isn't perfect, so there's some flaws. But that's not a problem with the base morality of the principle, that's an issue with the implementation. In an urban environment, I think f10-15 years is plenty.

The problem here is that you insist on pretending you are writing law for a pre-modern frontier land with little to no governance, while the contentious cases refer to a very different legal, practical and financial situation, that creates both a lot more perverse incentives to game the abandonment system, and means to make the need for such patchwork solutions to unowned property obsolete as far more orderly ones are available, and then try to rely on the same government's extensive abilities to judge and enforce the obsolete patchwork.
The "platonic ideal arbiter" should be told "its none of your fucking business because its my private property, not your or that guy's, and if i see it fit to leave it fallow and unattended, than that's how it should stay".

The morality is, that if the lawful owner, alive and mentally competent, has a deed to a piece of land and pays taxes for it, he owns it, no matter how long, there's no question about it. He doesn't need to hang around the property with a spear and deter intruders who may want to take his land. Not all the time, not once a month, not once a year, not a decade, as at this point we would be just quibbling over degrees of semi-civilization. That's the basis of civilized state, you can buy a piece of land on the other side of the country, make dispositions on it remotely, and expect business and institutions to recognize those as valid.
A state that protects squatter's rights but not ownership rights is worse than no state at all, in which case it's the law of the jungle, which is at least fair in its own way, rather than protecting some forms of predation over others.

You arguments are "Because there was no land registry, the Native Americans didn't own the land," which is laughable; that there are different rules for property of different value, which falls the Occam's razor test (not fatal, but not a good thing to fail regardless); and a constant appeal to the state.

All of these are bad arguments.

Yes, there are different legal systems, different states, different civilizations.
They also have wars sometimes and that decides whose will be the law of the land.
Ownership is a legal concept and as such it is meaningless without law to judge it by.
Without applicable and enforced law, who owns a particular piece of land or property is ultimately to be decided by threat or use of violence.

If the land isn't abandoned, then someone will be able to kick someone off (or even make an attempt) within 15 years. And I'm fine with the cops doing it independently (they should be), I just note that if they don't, then it sucks to be the previous owner. They should have actually put work into their property to keep it as theirs.


"Anarcho tyranny is your girlfriend taking your sweatshirt"

No one cares about an old sweatshirt and it probably doesn't have notarized records of ownership anyway, and for a reason. In the unlikely scenario the sweater was worth 50k bucks because say it belonged to someone extra famous and had its ownership notarized, damn right the owner would care.

OTOH a very small number of people on the planet can be possibly argued to not care about real estate with value measured in percent of a million USD, and those cases generally don't involve such people, as they are rich enough to have employees, contractors, agents or whatever managing property, its usually some kind of middle class people with few properties at most scattered around the country who are at loss from such cases.
The system you are suggesting here is uncomfortably close to early medieval property system and the disputes within it. Theoretically it works, but in practice whoever can take it and hold it without getting their shit kicked in by local baron or king keeps it.
No, if its my private property, and it is documented that i own it, i have a deed to it, and especially if i pay taxes to a local government for it, it is solely my decision whether i invest into it or not at any particular moment.
Even the need to pay property taxes is iffy on whether it conflicts with property rights already, but especially if we have that system, the idea that any random person gets to police my use of property and can confiscate it as long as he catches me not paying attention to it for sufficient time, or even not investing some kind of labor into it over that time, be it 15 days or 15 years, and then the state protects his claim, is even worse. This is a weird attempt at semi-anarchy.
We don't live on some barely settled planet with no functional government, post-apocalyptic wasteland or something like that, where there simply is no obvious way to figure out if anyone owns a piece of land in most cases, the records are there, if you think no one owns that land and so want to claim it, consult the records and local area's institutions that manage them, if those don't exist you may have an argument, but if they do, not consulting them should be considered proof of malicious intent by not doing due diligence.
The state should be doing it independently, particularly if it recognizes such a thing as squatter's rights, and if it fails to do so in such a case, it should be on the hook for any costs, burdens and losses related to failure to fulfill that duty to a taxpaying resident.
This is a failure in the most basic responsibilities of a state.

 

[Abhorsen]

No it doesn't. Possession is not ownership. Occupation is also not ownership. You could argue possession at best here.

Really? So that tupperware dish you left at your friends house is actually forever yours, even after 5 years? After it's resold in a garage sale? At what point does it stop being yours?

Yes, there are different legal systems, different states, different civilizations.
They also have wars sometimes and that decides whose will be the law of the land.
Ownership is a legal concept and as such it is meaningless without law to judge it by.
Without applicable and enforced law, who owns a particular piece of land or property is ultimately to be decided by threat or use of violence.

Oh, if ownership is just a legal concept, then there's no moral problem with outright communism then? Because they legally declared everything you own is now the state's property.

Look, if you argue legalism, I win, because the current law agrees mostly with me. You need to argue on a moral level instead. And to be frank, you haven't really bothered to do so. Everytime you get going, it's always "the state says X, the state says Y."

No one cares about an old sweatshirt and it probably doesn't have notarized records of ownership anyway, and for a reason. In the unlikely scenario the sweater was worth 50k bucks because say it belonged to someone extra famous and had its ownership notarized, damn right the owner would care.

OTOH a very small number of people on the planet can be possibly argued to not care about real estate with value measured in percent of a million USD, and those cases generally don't involve such people, as they are rich enough to have employees, contractors, agents or whatever managing property, its usually some kind of middle class people with few properties at most scattered around the country who are at loss from such cases.

The bolded part is an appeal to legal arguments, and discarded for the above reasons.

As for no one caring about the sweatshirt, exactly. If, instead, the sweatshirt had some deep sentimental value to the BF, he'd likely take it back and have a right to do so (i.e. he'd assert his property rights). But when the boyfriend abandons the property, he forfeits his property right to it. If later on, the sweatshirt ends up being worth a lot, sucks to suck, it's not his any more. The BF abandoned the property the same as if he had put it on the curb next to the trash.

Now while it's practically inconceivable to you (or me) that someone would do the same with real estate, people do do this. And frankly, it shocks me as well. But this is why adverse possession exists, for those cases.

The system you are suggesting here is uncomfortably close to early medieval property system and the disputes within it. Theoretically it works, but in practice whoever can take it and hold it without getting their shit kicked in by local baron or king keeps it.

Again, the system I'm proposing (the current system btw) has very little to do with medieval rules, and nothing to do with violent theft or theft by subterfuge. It's based in the Lockean concept of the creation of property rights.

You keep wrongly comparing my system (the current system) to one where forceful theft happens. Start having actually valid comparisons please.

No, if its my private property, and it is documented that i own it, i have a deed to it, and especially if i pay taxes to a local government for it, it is solely my decision whether i invest into it or not at any particular moment.

None of the bolded parts have any moral value to them. All of them boil down to "but the state says so!" i.e. a legal argument at best, and fail because the state also says "adverse possession." As for it being your private property, that's the whole point of the discussion.

Even the need to pay property taxes is iffy on whether it conflicts with property rights already, but especially if we have that system, the idea that any random person gets to police my use of property and can confiscate it as long as he catches me not paying attention to it for sufficient time, or even not investing some kind of labor into it over that time, be it 15 days or 15 years, and then the state protects his claim, is even worse. This is a weird attempt at semi-anarchy.
We don't live on some barely settled planet with no functional government, post-apocalyptic wasteland or something like that, where there simply is no obvious way to figure out if anyone owns a piece of land in most cases, the records are there, if you think no one owns that land and so want to claim it, consult the records and local area's institutions that manage them, if those don't exist you may have an argument, but if they do, not consulting them should be considered proof of malicious intent by not doing due diligence.
The state should be doing it independently, particularly if it recognizes such a thing as squatter's rights, and if it fails to do so in such a case, it should be on the hook for any costs, burdens and losses related to failure to fulfill that duty to a taxpaying resident.
This is a failure in the most basic responsibilities of a state.

Likewise, none of this actually disputes my definition of property rights on a moral level. Congrats, you claim to have found a moral issue with the state. Add that to the tally of the billion ways it violates your freedom every day. The State is a mafia, and hates you. You're an idiot if you don't hate it back. What the state does or doesn't do has absolutely Zero impact on what property rights should be morally speaking.

 

[Marduk]

Really? So that tupperware dish you left at your friends house is actually forever yours, even after 5 years? After it's resold in a garage sale? At what point does it stop being yours?

Reselling changes it, though i do have a claim on said friend for selling something that was not his to sell.

Oh, if ownership is just a legal concept, then there's no moral problem with outright communism then? Because they legally declared everything you own is now the state's property.

In communist's morality, obviously there isn't, if there was, they wouldn't be communists.
If you want to contest enforcement of communist law based on communist morality that is gonna take extreme amounts of violence, nothing less.
No amount of morality word games will convince the communists otherwise, sufficient armored divisions will.

Look, if you argue legalism, I win, because the current law agrees mostly with me. You need to argue on a moral level instead. And to be frank, you haven't really bothered to do so. Everytime you get going, it's always "the state says X, the state says Y."

>mostly
Like in mostly peaceful. Whether courts and state enforce current law properly is another question.
Ownership is not ownership in your world, it's a conditional lease that has to be renewed by certain unspecific actions being performed upon the property every some arbitrary amount of time. If it is marketed otherwise, your whole legal system is based on lies.

The bolded part is an appeal to legal arguments, and discarded for the above reasons.

As for no one caring about the sweatshirt, exactly. If, instead, the sweatshirt had some deep sentimental value to the BF, he'd likely take it back and have a right to do so (i.e. he'd assert his property rights). But when the boyfriend abandons the property, he forfeits his property right to it. If later on, the sweatshirt ends up being worth a lot, sucks to suck, it's not his any more. The BF abandoned the property the same as if he had put it on the curb next to the trash.

Now while it's practically inconceivable to you (or me) that someone would do the same with real estate, people do do this. And frankly, it shocks me as well. But this is why adverse possession exists, for those cases.

Its much easier to argue abandonment with mobile property of little value.
With real estate with notarized ownership and large value, there is no argument in well functioning first world countries.
The cases mentioned are essentially based on luck and surprise at the cost rightful owner combined with state being run like shit.

Again, the system I'm proposing (the current system btw) has very little to do with medieval rules, and nothing to do with violent theft or theft by subterfuge. It's based in the Lockean concept of the creation of property rights.

But there are no property rights being created, only transferred from one owner to another.

You keep wrongly comparing my system (the current system) to one where forceful theft happens. Start having actually valid comparisons please.

Theft is theft, forceful or not. If a thief can steal a thing without even needing to use force he will usually prefer such a way.
If the state prevents theft, it is a well functioning state at least in that regard.,
If the state doesn't actively prevent theft but doesn't stop you from doing it by whatever means necessary, it's a reasonable through possibly weak state.
If the state doesn't prevent theft but stops you from taking what even said state said is yours from thieves by force if need be, it's anarcho-tyranny.

None of the bolded parts have any moral value to them. All of them boil down to "but the state says so!" i.e. a legal argument at best, and fail because the state also says "adverse possession." As for it being your private property, that's the whole point of the discussion.

And my point is that this is commie grade law (or is being interpreted as such) and the state should be made to change it, because in some ways it's a worse thing than China's 99 year leases - at least the commies are honest that you don't own the property, while in this mess, you kinda sorta own it, but if you are an absentee owner, fuck you, the state might side with thieves against you.

Likewise, none of this actually disputes my definition of property rights on a moral level. Congrats, you claim to have found a moral issue with the state. Add that to the tally of the billion ways it violates your freedom every day. The State is a mafia, and hates you. You're an idiot if you don't hate it back. What the state does or doesn't do has absolutely Zero impact on what property rights should be morally speaking.

I prefer a stable and reasonable mafia to every asshole playing a small time mafia while also trying to moralize at me about what exactly am i supposed to do with my property and how often in order to be considered as owning it.
Without the state, the situation would be at least clear - more bullets, less moralistic bullshitry.
Eventually a jarl, khan, republic, king or whatever would arise and set basic and functional laws, like you pay for owning a part of his sovereign domain and pay taxes, he will write that in his register and let no one randomly usurp it. If its a bad government it might usurp it themselves, but that's at least one party to worry about, as opposed to bloody everyone.
And yes, morally speaking the state has a duty to do or don't do certain things with property.

 

[SoliFortissimi]

Why do Squatter's Laws even exist?

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Why do Squatter's Laws even exist?

To ensure that people only own land they can actually take care of.
Totally ignored for mega-corps of course, plebes need to learn their place.

 

[SoliFortissimi]

o ensure that people only own land they can actually take care of.

Why? Let people own whatever they will. Tax them if you only resent the unproductivity.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Why? Let people own whatever they will. Tax them if you only resent the unproductivity.

Why? Because if the plebes own too much land, they might get uppity.

 

[mrttao]

Why do Squatter's Laws even exist?

Allegedly to
1. prevent the ultra rich from buying and owning everything and driving away the plebs
2. prevent having to deal with "here is this 200 year old piece of paper that says ackshually I own this land and everything on it"

But in reality it does not really do much if anything to curtail the super rich and instead is a tool for fucking over middle class who try to invest in real estate.
as well as to promote the lawless class.

 

[Marduk]

Why do Squatter's Laws even exist?

Relic of frontier era when people claiming random and preferably large pieces of land in the Wild West by homesteading and then dying or fucking off when they couldn't handle it was a thing.

To ensure that people only own land they can actually take care of.
Totally ignored for mega-corps of course, plebes need to learn their place.

Megacorps don't have the problem to begin with. Owning large properties they can and will hire property managers, lawyers even private security or whatever to ensure nothing funny goes on with their investment.
It's left to terrorize the middle class absentee owners with 2 or 3 properties in different states on different ends of the country.

 

[Captain X]

The real issue of squatters rights is when they are very short term, and there the US is very different than the UK. In the US, if you have a squatter, in most US jurisdictions it's pretty easy to kick them out. Not in the UK, and that's an issue.

So you're completely ignoring all the times that this hasn't been the case, including an example that was specifically highlighted?

Homeowner arrested after trying to evict squatters from his own property: ‘Walked in on weapons, a prostitute, a bunch of dogs’

Six months later, he’s still waiting to have the intruders legally removed.

nypost.com

The first case has a man fighting for more than half a year to evict these people, and even though he finally won after more than six months in court, they are still there because law enforcement has yet to enforce it. And like a cherry on top, he got fined by the city for not maintaining his property. And it's not like these squatters have been fine upstanding citizens during this time, either, as there has been obvious criminal activity going on there in the meantime.

You seem to think for some reason that this is only ever over property that someone "doesn't care about" and I'm frankly appalled at that thinking in general, especially from someone claiming to be a libertarian, who should give a damn about property rights. You're also ignoring things like snow birds, who live in two different locations at different times of the year, who would have no way of knowing that there were squatters on their property unless someone contacted them, or in the other example in that article I posted the link to, which involved an Army officer who had been deployed.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[Captain X]

That's not deception. And it isn't reliant on the owner not knowing, but the owner not caring.

The only way you could think this is by completely ignoring the fact that this is almost always not the case.

Goddamn, you just keep making me lose any respect I once had for you because of this stupid shit.

 

[Zachowon]

So you're completely ignoring all the times that this hasn't been the case, including an example that was specifically highlighted?

Homeowner arrested after trying to evict squatters from his own property: ‘Walked in on weapons, a prostitute, a bunch of dogs’

Six months later, he’s still waiting to have the intruders legally removed.

nypost.com

The first case has a man fighting for more than half a year to evict these people, and even though he finally won after more than six months in court, they are still there because law enforcement has yet to enforce it. And like a cherry on top, he got fined by the city for not maintaining his property. And it's not like these squatters have been fine upstanding citizens during this time, either, as there has been obvious criminal activity going on there in the meantime.

You seem to think for some reason that this is only ever over property that someone "doesn't care about" and I'm frankly appalled at that thinking in general, especially from someone claiming to be a libertarian, who should give a damn about property rights. You're also ignoring things like snow birds, who live in two different locations at different times of the year, who would have no way of knowing that there were squatters on their property unless someone contacted them, or in the other example in that article I posted the link to, which involved an Army officer who had been deployed.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Yeah the army one hits way to close ro home because it would lead to more military focusing on being on post instead of off, hurting housing markets across the country due to bases not using off post housing anymore

 

[DarthOne]

Where the Alex Jones Doomguy meme…?

Ah there it is.

 

[Abhorsen]

So you're completely ignoring all the times that this hasn't been the case, including an example that was specifically highlighted?

Homeowner arrested after trying to evict squatters from his own property: ‘Walked in on weapons, a prostitute, a bunch of dogs’

Six months later, he’s still waiting to have the intruders legally removed.

nypost.com

The first case has a man fighting for more than half a year to evict these people, and even though he finally won after more than six months in court, they are still there because law enforcement has yet to enforce it. And like a cherry on top, he got fined by the city for not maintaining his property. And it's not like these squatters have been fine upstanding citizens during this time, either, as there has been obvious criminal activity going on there in the meantime.

You seem to think for some reason that this is only ever over property that someone "doesn't care about" and I'm frankly appalled at that thinking in general, especially from someone claiming to be a libertarian, who should give a damn about property rights. You're also ignoring things like snow birds, who live in two different locations at different times of the year, who would have no way of knowing that there were squatters on their property unless someone contacted them, or in the other example in that article I posted the link to, which involved an Army officer who had been deployed.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

You've got my position completely wrong. This is what I meant when I said short term. I was very much including this stuff (I probably should have said relatively short term). This is a problem, we agree here.

Though I wasn't aware that in Georgia it was so difficult to kick people out. I could have expected that the person from California would have had problems, but in Georgia? That's eye opening to me.


This is entirely separate from what I'm arguing for, which is adverse possession, which only applies when someone possesses a house openly and blatantly, continually, for well over a decade (I think 15 years is the normal), improves the house, without the owner even challenging it, and without threatening the owner during that over time period.

This is what I meant when it comes to long term homesteading.

The only way you could think this is by completely ignoring the fact that this is almost always not the case.

Goddamn, you just keep making me lose any respect I once had for you because of this stupid shit.

It's not what's normally happening, but ignorance is not why the transfer of ownership happens. Moral laws can't depend on ignorance. It's active neglect of the land.

In communist's morality, obviously there isn't, if there was, they wouldn't be communists.
If you want to contest enforcement of communist law based on communist morality that is gonna take extreme amounts of violence, nothing less.
No amount of morality word games will convince the communists otherwise, sufficient armored divisions will.

>mostly
Like in mostly peaceful. Whether courts and state enforce current law properly is another question.
Ownership is not ownership in your world, it's a conditional lease that has to be renewed by certain unspecific actions being performed upon the property every some arbitrary amount of time. If it is marketed otherwise, your whole legal system is based on lies.

And my point is that this is commie grade law (or is being interpreted as such) and the state should be made to change it, because in some ways it's a worse thing than China's 99 year leases - at least the commies are honest that you don't own the property, while in this mess, you kinda sorta own it, but if you are an absentee owner, fuck you, the state might side with thieves against you.

Sure, you can argue these. But when you do, you have to stop making legal arguments, as legally I'm right, so you are making a moral argument. But you kept making legal arguments regardless, so I stopped paying attention.

Its much easier to argue abandonment with mobile property of little value.
With real estate with notarized ownership and large value, there is no argument in well functioning first world countries.
The cases mentioned are essentially based on luck and surprise at the cost rightful owner combined with state being run like shit.

Yes, it is much easier. Which is why I require something along the lines of 15 years of open and blatant occupation for real estate, as opposed to what I require for tubberware or a sweatshirt.

What you haven't been able to do is actually find a moral contradiction in what I believe. In contrast, I've pointed out numerous incongruencies with yours. Here's another one:

Reselling changes it, though i do have a claim on said friend for selling something that was not his to sell.

Why? That's completely not how things work generally. It doesn't work that way for theft. Why should transfer of the item grant the unknowing new owner actual ownership? Do you not see how easy this would be to abuse by actual communists simply reselling rich peoples stuff for little, having no assets of their own, and bankrupting someone?

See, this is the difference between your position and my position. Mine is based in reality, resistant to communists taking advantage of it, and self consistent. Marduk needs to constantly add new rules to deal with every example I throw him, isn't based in reality, and apparently now has a massive gaping hole for communists to walk through.

But there are no property rights being created, only transferred from one owner to another.

Again, this is in dispute. All you are saying is 'nuh-uh'. I've no interest in getting into a repitition of yes and nos with you.

Also, there very much are property rights being created all the time with abandoned goods. When someone takes a couch off the side of the road, that's a property right being created. I'm saying that real estate property rights happen the same sorta way, just take longer because we've got to be sure stuff got effectively abandoned.

Theft is theft, forceful or not. If a thief can steal a thing without even needing to use force he will usually prefer such a way.

Again, you put the cart before the horse. I don't believe what is happening is theft. Thus you purposely comparing it to something with violence in it means you are trying to slip theft into my definition. Stop trying to change my definition.

If the state prevents theft, it is a well functioning state at least in that regard.,
If the state doesn't actively prevent theft but doesn't stop you from doing it by whatever means necessary, it's a reasonable through possibly weak state.
If the state doesn't prevent theft but stops you from taking what even said state said is yours from thieves by force if need be, it's anarcho-tyranny.
...
I prefer a stable and reasonable mafia to every asshole playing a small time mafia while also trying to moralize at me about what exactly am i supposed to do with my property and how often in order to be considered as owning it.
Without the state, the situation would be at least clear - more bullets, less moralistic bullshitry.
Eventually a jarl, khan, republic, king or whatever would arise and set basic and functional laws, like you pay for owning a part of his sovereign domain and pay taxes, he will write that in his register and let no one randomly usurp it. If its a bad government it might usurp it themselves, but that's at least one party to worry about, as opposed to bloody everyone.
And yes, morally speaking the state has a duty to do or don't do certain things with property.

(I've combined your rants about the state.)

Then again you rant about the state. Lol, again, the state doesn't agree with you, make moral arguments. Just saying the state has a moral duty to do 'stuff' still doesn't work, as the question arises "what exactly does the state have a moral duty to do?" I.e. it still leaves wide open the moral question of how do property rights work.

I'm still, btw, waiting for a moral argument about why you think property rights are some eternal thing that can't be abandoned. That, frankly, is absurd to me. Property rights are temporal (not temporary, necessarily). It's obvious in the way people behave, as they behave as if they are not necessarily permanent. I've given numerous examples of this.

Property rights can be complicated things, for example, you could buy a property right for you and your family to walk over part of someone's property (called an easement). I currently rent the property rights to where I live from someone else. This includes them not having the right to walk into land they own whenever they want to, because I rent it. Thinking that they are just a simple thing of "the deed owner can do whatever" shows a complete lack of understanding and respect for property rights.