Seth: Hey folks, how's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster podcast, and this is episode 193. Show notes for today can be found at retipster.com/193.

Today, I'm talking with George McCleary. So I discovered George recently when I came across a viral video he made called “I Stole a House.” And in this video, he demonstrated how easy it was to be a squatter and take over a house in Portland, Oregon. And it's actually easier for me to just play the video for you right here, right now. So you can kind of understand the context. So I'm going to quick play that and we'll be right back.

“This is how I stole a house in Portland, Oregon and totally got away with it.

“So the first thing I did was find a vacant house that somebody was trying to rent. Next, I looked up how to break into a lockbox without using force. Thanks YouTube! Next, I forged some documents. This made it look like I had a lease agreement and I called the utility companies and had the utilities put in my name. I'm not going to pay them, but they don't know that.

“When the owner showed up, I politely explained that this was my house now and they need to leave. So they call the police and I show them my lease agreement and the utility bills and they tell the owner that this is a civil matter and they've got to sue me. This made the owner super angry so she lawyers up and tries to evict me.

“Of course, I can't afford a lawyer, so I call up a tenant advocacy group who gives me a lawyer that's 100% free and funded by taxpayers. So my out-of-pocket is still $0. So this lawyer fights on my behalf for months and months, really driving the owner crazy and costing her tens of thousands of dollars.

“Finally, the owner decided it would be cheaper to just give me a chunk of cash to leave rather than continue paying the lawyer. So she writes me a check for $10,000 and I move out. I didn't even have to clean the place up, and that's a good thing because I do a lot of of drugs, and the house looks every bit of it. Still no thank you note for aerating the walls, but whatever.

“So I just got nine months of free rent and a house that otherwise would have cost me three grand a month, plus a nice cash for keys check. And I wasn't even charged with anything.

“I always thought that stealing was wrong, but it turns out if you steal a house, it's not even against the law here. So this couldn't have worked out any better.

“Thanks, Portland!”

Okay, so you just heard it, and this video amassed tens of millions of views, and since then, George has been featured on Dr. Phil and in news outlets worldwide, including Bigger Pockets, Fox News, and Joe Rogan.

And since all of this happened, George has been educating people about the financial devastation caused by squatters and title fraud. And unfortunately, title fraud has become a pretty big problem in some parts of the country, especially in the land business. And even the squatting issue is a potential problem some of us may have to deal with at some point.

So we're going to get into this subject a bit today and understand, first of all, what is squatting in case you don't even know what we're talking about here. But also, what are squatters rights? Why is this even a thing where squatters have rights at all? And what does a property owner need to do to protect themselves from either squatters or title fraud? So this is going to be fascinating. I'm looking forward to it.

George, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

George: What's up, Seth? So happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Seth: Before we get into all the squatting and the title fraud stuff, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into real estate investing? Like when you're not squatting in people's properties, what else do you do?

George: Oh, man, it takes up so much of my time with squatting. But when I'm not doing that, so yeah, I'll take you way back.

I graduated college and became an investment banker because I heard that's where the money was. But then I decided I didn't like it. And I did what anybody would do and quit and moved to Australia and became a surfer. And while I was there, I read a bunch of books all about real estate and consulting different fields that I could switch my career into. I thought my life was over. I was 23 years old, and I had to make a big change, big pivot. It.

And one of the books I read was Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Creating Wealth. And it really spoke to me. So I came back and I started investing in real estate, became a broker, and then eventually became a developer and house flipper. And 20 years later, I'm still doing it. I'm still building apartments and an industrial space right now.

But I've had this little side quest that's, I guess, several months. And that's been with the squatting and deed fraud. As a real estate investor, I'd built up some personal wealth. And the whole time, I've got insurance, I'm watching my back, I'm making sure that nothing's going wrong, nothing's going to create a scenario where I'm going to lose this wealth other than by just market forces naturally.

But then I come across some things that, I guess, “threaten” my livelihood, and that would be the squatters. And so I'd had like low-level squatters here and there, just, you know, drug addicts that snuck into one of my flips or developments and falling asleep on the floor. I say, “Hey, you guys need to go.” But I'd been hearing from colleagues about squatters that had a plan. They had a real insidious plan and it was working and they had a formula and I learned about the formula.

And then I made the video about it and it exploded.

And after that, everybody and their mother was contacting me with all their squatter stories. And I learned a ton on the subject because I just became a lightning rod for it. And so I learned everything I could about real estate fraud and the real ship sinkers, the things that cause you to lose a ton of wealth that you work so hard to build up in your real estate career. And really just kind of dug into it and realized this is an underserved market. And it's been a side hustle since then.

Seth: Yeah. Wow. That's fascinating. So you've never actually had a squatter or somebody try to defraud the title on your properties. Personally, you just kind of heard about this as a growing problem in the industry, right?

George: So I've never had, like, a “squatter in earnest,” I guess we could call them. So homeless addicts, Portland has a lot of them. And so I've had to kick a few of them out of my work sites and that's been no big deal. You know, they mumble something and move along and in short order.

But I have had friends, especially some wholesaler friends, guys that are working with a lot of lower-level homes and neighborhoods. I've heard about this happening again and again, where people are moving into houses and essentially fooling the cops into thinking that they have a lease either by way of faking a lease or by just having furniture and their friends moved in there and creating plausibility that they could be tenants.

And it's really hard to remove somebody from their house. You got to have really good reason. And with the, “he said, she said,” cops are saying, oh, well, all right, you guys got to go work this out and take me to court. I'm not going to put my job on the line for this.

So I just thought that was, wow, this is a pretty flawless scam. And this affects me and the livelihood of myself and my colleagues. So I got to say something about this. And it really did end up speaking to people.

Seth: I'm imagining most listeners by now probably have a good idea of what squatting is, but just in case there's any ambiguity, is this basically just when somebody moves onto your land or moves into your house and they just take it over, they just kind of treat it like it's theirs? And just by the nature of the fact that they're doing that, that somehow gives them rights. Is that accurate? Like, how long do they have to stay there before they do have these rights? And why is it set up that way?

George: Totally. So that's about the size of it. Yeah, it's somebody moves into a house or property, usually making some claim to it, claiming to be like a tenant or an heir or something like that. And the reason that it's happening there—the reason they're able to get away with it—is because there's a set of rights that are afforded to you if you are a tenant on a property.

And also, it's not to be confused with adverse possession laws. Those are laws that grant you title to a property if you're there for long enough. And that ranges anywhere from like several years to like decades, state by state. So we're really not talking about adverse possession that gets conflated with squatter’s rights every so often.

But what we're talking about is people that are willfully trespassing and getting themselves a set of rights by way of fooling law enforcement and exploiting landlord-tenant law so that they gain a set of rights. And kicking them out becomes extremely difficult. And so, what the result of this is is prolonged stays by these people that have never had any rights to be there in the first place.

And also lack of criminal prosecution, because to get them out, you use a civil process rather than just yanking them out because they're trespassers.

Seth: Okay, gotcha. So, you mentioned you basically just have to fool law enforcement into thinking that you are a tenant. So what does it take to fool law enforcement? Is it different things in different states or just by being there? Is that it? Or do I need like a lease on paper or, I don't know, what would check the box if I wanted to squat in somebody's house? How do I officially fool law enforcement?

George: Yeah, no, you would think it would be kind of difficult, but it's in the eye of the beholder. So put yourself in the position of the cop. You roll up to a house and you've got one guy saying, “Hey, this guy's not supposed to be here.” And the other guy says, “Well, I am supposed to be here. I'm a tenant.”

And the cop, you know, is going to eyeball both of them. You're going to look at both of them. If the guy is occupying the house and it looks plausible that like, yes, he has moved in, there's things in there, there's belongings, there's people, there's a cat, there's a lawnmower out front and like, you know, neighbors wave to him or whatever, then there's going to be a level of plausibility where the cop is going to think twice before saying, “Okay, you're coming with me. You're under arrest for trespass,” because any evidence that he's got there is just kind of circumstantial, and he's there to serve the public. That's what our cops are for.

But at the same time, if you've got two people that are essentially in what amounts to a dispute, you say, “I'm sorry guys, but this is on you. You're going to have to just figure it out yourself.”

And so the methods that they use other than just moving in are a fake lease. That's number one. And that is, you know, you can forge signatures. Someone says, “Hey, that's not my signature.” The cop's not there to verify signatures.

And then the other thing is putting utilities into their name or putting in some cases, the deed into their name and saying, “Hey, I own this house and here's my ID.” And so that's a whole different thing with the deed fraud thing, which I know we'll talk about later, but that's essentially what they're doing: just those two things. They're making a claim, presenting a fake lease and presenting utilities.

But a lot of times they're not even bothering with that. They're just showing up, moving in friends and furniture and saying like, yo, this is mine. I'm a tenant.

Seth: So like the police officer who pulls up to the house, they're probably not going to dig that deep to verify anything, right? Like it's probably just the squatter just saying, nope, it's mine. And the cop is probably like, okay, well, it's up to you guys to sort it out, right?

Is that the extent of it? Or do they do anything to like say, no, prove it to me, squatter.

George: That's the thing. The burden of proof is unfortunately on the owner. So ownership is, or possession, is nine-tenths of the law. You've probably heard that before. And so the shirt that's on your back is presumed to be your own, unless somebody else can prove otherwise straight away, that that shirt on your back is not yours.

And if you're in possession of a house, then yeah, you're assumed to be the rightful occupant of it one way or another. And it's hard to pull somebody out of a house. It's easy to put someone into a house, but pulling them out and arresting them is a whole different deal.

So even if the cops are not presented with a whole lot of evidence, it's still difficult to pull somebody out of a house. If they're a known bad actor, if it's a small town and you got Frankie the Stealer in there and he's known for this, then yeah, the cop will be like, okay, here goes Frankie again, and they'll pull him out.

But most of the time this is being perpetrated in cities where the cops don't know the owner or the occupant from Adam. So they just act accordingly.

Seth: So when we interviewed Clint Coons back in episode 99, he's a real estate attorney. We talked a little bit about not exactly squatting, but this idea of like, say if I put a fence over my neighbor's yard by 10 feet and I mow the lawn and I treat it like it's mine for 10 years. I don't know what the exact timeline is, but essentially if you do this long enough, like it can eventually somehow become legally yours because you're treating it as such. And the neighbor isn't doing anything to stop you.

I don't know all the legalities behind this. It's probably different from state to state, but it makes me wonder, how long does a squatter have to hang out in your house? Or, say if they want to put a camper on my land and just stay there. And they're there for like five years and I don't even know about it. They're just there.

Is there a point at which they can claim the deed just because they've been there? Like, how does that work?

George: Unfortunately, yes. So what Clint is talking about, and this is why we have lawyers, is adverse possession. That's where you gain the deed to the property by way of “openly and notoriously” occupying the place.

So the neighbor knows that you're mowing the lawn. They see the fence. They may not be aware of the property line, but nonetheless, you're taking care of the place. You're paying taxes. You're doing everything you need to do. And then it varies again, state by state, but it's measured in years. Years and in some, but in some cases it's, several years. And boom, you've got an adverse possession claim.

But in some states, there is a famous case in New York where the owner of a property had some squatters in it and she came to change the locks and kick them out, but she ended up getting arrested herself because, in the state of New York (at least at that time, I think they're trying to change it), but anybody who occupies a place for more than 30 days is automatically granted status as a tenant, which is crazy.

But a lot of people don't check on their properties as often as, you know, 30 days. So they've been occupying the place for that long and they were tenants and she went and changed the locks. So the cops went and they arrested her, the owner.

Seth: That is nuts.

George: It's wild.

Seth: Yeah. Claiming status as a tenant is… so what does that mean exactly? Like, let's just pretend that's true. Now they're a tenant for some reason. How do you evict them? If you never signed a real lease with a rent them out or anything, and there's no terms of default, how do you then get rid of this tenant if nothing was ever put in writing?

George: Right. So if you call up your standard-issue lawyer and you say, all right, hey, I've got a squatter and I got to get rid of them. You know, lawyers are not going to be thinking too creatively about this.

And they're going to think, all right, well, you got two options. You can either do ejectment or eviction. And so eviction is where you basically,, it's a tacit admission that, yeah, this person's like a tenant, even though they're not, and there's no contract, you're still going through the same process to evict them that you would somebody who had stopped paying rent.

So the moment that you set foot in the courtroom, the moment that you actually go through that process, you've already lost because the tenants (or the squatters, rather), they've got methods to file continuances, get new lawyers, really just extend the process. That's their whole game: to stay there as long as humanly possible.

And so between ejectment and eviction, any attorney is going to tell you ejectment is really the proper process that you should go through because that's the way you get rid of somebody who never had the right to be there in the first place. But the problem with that is it's a long docket process and it takes a long time to actually get rid of them.

Whereas eviction, you know, that happens pretty often, you know, city to city. There's like, it's a short docket process. And even though sometimes it takes several months or even longer to get rid of a non-paying tenant, with the eviction process, it's like 90% of the time it's shorter than ejectment.

And so, and again, what's the objective here? It's to reclaim your properties, to get it back. So, you know, you're going to say, well, I guess I'll go through eviction then. I mean, just looking at your lawyer, like he's crazy, right? But that's the shortest path. Those are the kinds of prescriptive routes that you end up hearing from attorneys, but they're operating in a much narrower box than the people who actually really study this stuff.

So yeah. I do advise talking to a lawyer. But if you've got somebody that says, all right, well, these are your only two choices, then yeah, you're probably better off shopping around.

Seth: Are there certain states that make this easier or harder, I guess, for the squatter or for the landlord? Or is it all kind of the same thing everywhere?

George: Unfortunately, the blue states are going to be the ones where you're going to be having a lot more difficulty. Blue jurisdictions, blue states. And that's from the standpoint of a landlord-tenant law and laws being much more heavily favored towards tenants versus landlords.

In those more liberal jurisdictions, the benefit of the doubt and the burden of proof and everything, it goes against the landlord and it's in favor of the tenant. So that's the vulnerability that the squatters are exploiting is these laws.

And they vary from state to state. There's some where eviction processes happen very quickly. And so you can get a squatter and they can file all the continuances they want. They can do this out of the other thing, but it's like bang, bang, bang. And the eviction process is not nearly as bad. Whereas in other places like in Seattle, it's like a year-long process to get out a non-paying tenant.

So generally speaking, we as real estate investors, we talk about where you want to invest, where you don't want to invest. There are advantages to investing in appreciation markets like Los Angeles or Seattle or Portland. And I own a bunch of real estate in these places. And it's a it's not a bad place to be from the standpoint of making money. But there are headaches that come along with it. And this, unfortunately, is one of them.

Seth: Let’s step back a little bit. Why do people do this? The squatting thing? Is it because they legitimately need a place to live or is it because of this ability to make money? Kind of like you did in your video. I think you said 37,000 or something like that, or 27. I forget what the number was, but I mean, you were able to essentially extract profit out of that? I think, right? Is that why people do this?

George: Big time. Yeah, I know. And that's really it. It's, to just put simply, it's a low-risk, high-reward crime.

So if you’re robbing a bank, if that suddenly was never prosecuted and all you have to really do is just sort of get past the morality of stealing from an institution, stealing people's money, I think there's a pretty good chance that the rate of bank robbery would increase. Because that's where the money is. And if you rob a bank now, you get in really big trouble and they're often caught.

But in this case, people on the internet, they talk and they realize, and they talk to each other and say, “Hey, you know, you can do this over and over again.” And what has happened as a result of that, as it's given a rise to a different class of squatter, it used to be just like you're saying, people that are like just looking for a place to live, if they're down on their luck, they got to steal some bread to feed themselves. So might as well, you know, steal an apartment and just see what they can get out of it.

No, there's people like in Beverly Hills, like white-collar folks that you would never really suspect. Guys in Seattle who just, there's a guy named Sang Kim who's been doing it like over and over again in $2 million houses. And they've just mastered the art essentially. And they don't give it a second thought. They've moved past the morality of stealing from people and they're not being held accountable and they're actually making and saving boatloads of money living in mansions, in $2 million houses and not being held accountable.

There will be protests outside, saying, “Get out of here!” And unfortunately, these people just don't care. They just don't have the conscience that you or I understand, like this is wrong and you can't do this to people. And that's why we have the criminal justice system for when morality doesn't stop people and people commit crimes, then there are consequences. And unfortunately, there are just no consequences being rendered at this point in time.

Seth: Is there any way one of these squatters could get thrown in jail? Or literally they can just get off scot-free? Like there's really no consequence at all. Am I hearing that right?

George: Well, there are cases where they do get thrown in jail and it's never for a period of time that would, I'd say, be in proportion to the amount of theft that they're doing. But yes, there are cases where it's been determined that 100%, this is a trespasser. They go in there, they prove it, they raid the place, they arrest them, they book them on trespassing and burglary.

And so there's a bunch of depending on how much they really want to throw the book out at them. So trespassing, that's not going to get you in too much trouble, but burglary, breaking and entering, robbery, vandalism… there's a bunch of things you can tag on there. And depending on who it is, if it's a known bad actor with a rap sheet a mile long and you know that's Frankie the Stealer (that's the guy I always use), then yeah, these people do get in trouble every so often, but it's got to be sort of like a “known a-hole” is a term that we use. You gotta be a known a-hole and really just be blatant about your crime.

Your everyday squatters who are kind of flying under the radar. These are the ones that are not getting prosecuted because people are thinking, oh my gosh, I have a squatter, call their lawyer and he just evicts them. They wipe their brow and say, Oh, well, gee, I guess I escaped that. Well, boy, how much did that cost me? Tens of thousands, a rough day at the office. It doesn't make the news. Maybe you'll talk about it with a few friends, but a lot of times people who get scammed don't want to talk about it. They just, you know, they figure, all right, that happened to me. And like, I don't want to relive my trauma here. I'm not going to go to the news. I'm not even going to bring it up to my meetup. I'm just going to suffer in silence on this one because, man, did I ever get taken?

Meanwhile, that guy is onto the next. And so, yeah. And that's the scenario that plays out over and over again, unfortunately.

Seth: No, I totally get that. Actually, I almost got scammed earlier this year, about a couple of months ago, and nothing even happened. Like we caught it before anything happened, but there's like this weird sense of shame almost. Like, I just feel so dumb that I fell prey to that. Like, what was I thinking? How did I not know?

So maybe that's what's going on, I don't know. But for some reason…

George: What happened to you?

Seth: This was somebody who called pretending to be Verizon and they sounded 100% legit. Like they didn't have foreign accents. They sounded straight-up us. They had information about my account, but then, because they presented themselves so aboveboard, I just kind of gave them information that they wanted to.

And I don't know, it was just, it was probably like 10 or 15 minutes into it. And I was like, wait a minute. This is weird. What's going on? But it took me a while to catch it. And then we stopped it and called the actual Verizon. And they're like, yeah, you've been a victim of—forgot what they call it, some phone fraud or something like that. But, yeah, it was crazy.

George: Yeah. I absolutely believe it. And it's funny; you mentioned that you probably weren't aware that that was a scam, right? That people posed as Verizon calling you up to find out, you know, the first street you grew up on or things like that, probably.

And if you were aware of that scam, then it's probably less likely that you would have fallen victim to that. And so that's what I tell people who say, “Hey, man, I saw your viral video. What are you doing, man? You're giving people the playbook. You're telling squatters exactly what to do here.” And I definitely get it, to a point, because I understand that there could be somebody out there that says, whoa, that seems easy. Maybe I should do that. And it's definitely possible.

The thing is, just like with the Verizon scam, Seth, it's difficult to scam somebody who understands what the scam is. And the more awareness and the more education that people have on the subject, understanding what the tactics are, what's at stake, and how this crime works, there's going to be fewer and fewer people that are going to get away with it because the moment somebody enters their place as a squatter, somebody who's actually prepared, who's maybe taken my Squatter Defender course, is going to know what to do and what levers to pull to help fix it. And it's better to have everybody know how to swim rather than remove the pool.

Seth: Now, in terms of how much this typically costs a homeowner or a property owner, maybe it changes based on whether it's a house or vacant land, for example. I'm not sure how much impact that has. There's probably no utility bills for vacant land, that kind of thing. But I think I heard you say tens of thousands earlier. Is that a normal cost for a homeowner to find their problem, get them out of there, and deal with all that?

George: Yeah, best case scenario, tens of thousands, which is pretty wild.

Seth: I'm assuming there's no insurance that covers any of this, right?

George: You know, it's funny. There actually now is a squatter insurance that you can buy. And I haven't looked very closely at it, but it only covers damages up to, I can't remember, like 20 grand. And so a great idea. And I salute that company for coming up with that.

But they definitely need to raise the coverage limits because it's a little bit on the low side. And the reason for that, the reason I say that is because after I went viral and everybody started reaching out with their squatter stories, because you hear about them in the news. And I actually reached out to some people that have been victims of squatters from the news.

And so when you hear about the news, all you hear about is, “Here's a victim. Here's what happened. And the squatters moved in.” It's really terrible. You should be angry about this. That's the news story. But they never actually do the aftermath. Like, OK, this person finally got them out and you won't believe what it cost them. That article has never been written about any one single squatter story.

So what I did is I called them up and said, like, “Yo, tell me what happens after you found out the squatters there and eventually got rid of them. Like, what happens to your emotional state, your financial state? Tell me everything.”

And the amount of money that was costing these people was absolutely staggering. It was ranging anywhere from about $50,000 to $100,000 per squatter case, which I was utterly shocked at. I was like, “How is that even possible?” I mean, you trash a unit. You can probably fix that up for, like, 20, 30, 40 grand, even if you're just doing finishes.

But that's just like part of it. Then you're paying your lawyer. If it's a long, protracted battle, anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000 per month, I've gotten those bills before. And they're no fun. If you've ever been embroiled in a lawsuit, those lawyer bills, it's like, they think about you sitting on the toilet and they'll send you a bill for it.

And those bills add up—the trashing of the place, then court costs, arbitrators, judges, they charge a bunch of money. So by the end of it, it just really adds up. And even in cases where people got them out relatively quickly, the damage to the place wasn't covered by insurance. And in the case of my friend in Seattle, she had about $70,000 worth of damages to her place. She had to basically completely redo it, and even though she kind of got off easy—they got arrested and it was a kind of a win in a way—it was still enough time for the place to be completely trashed. And she still had to pay the lawyer that she lawyered up with.

Seth; Yeah. How often do you hear about this happening with vacant land properties? Is that a common thing? I mean, it almost seems like it'd be way easier. Just roll a car or a camper on there. Is that a common thing?

George: You know, I spoke to nobody that had like an ongoing squatter scenario with a trailer, but I did talk to somebody who had somebody that basically just did that. And what they did is they just hitched up the trailer when they weren't around and took it away.

And so when it comes to establishing tenancy rights on vacant land with a detached structure, it's a little bit different than if it's an attached structure that has somebody occupying it. So yes, it absolutely can happen. Someone could set up a tent, put up an RV and call themselves a squatter, but I'm not so sure they're afforded the exact same protections as somebody who's in a permanent structure.

But that is something you definitely want to watch out for because, when there's large swaths of land, people can much more easily go undetected while they're there. And so whether or not you can actually just, you know, hitch up a trailer and move them out, that's a good topic for the Squatter Defender course.

Seth: Well, let's talk about this a little bit. So what can a person do, whether it's land or a house or whatever? Are there some mechanisms they can put in place to make sure this doesn't happen to them or to catch it early on if it does start happening? What are they supposed to do about it?

George: Totally. So in the Squatter Defender course, I teach squatter prevention, detection, and ejection. So those three arms right there, it's mainly the protection and the ejection.

So detection is pretty simple—you got to know if somebody's in your property, right? So that leg of it is pretty self-explanatory. You need to get an alarm system and not a complicated one. In fact, that's really important. You don't need a big, hardwired, expensive system. You want an inexpensive system with a motion sensor and a camera so that if somebody shows up at your property, you just get a little beep on your phone and you know to look at your camera and see who's there. Or see if there's packages piling up, things like that.

And I’ll give you a 50% off coupon in the Squatter Defender course for SimpliSafe. And I don't work for them. There's no affiliation, but that's what I use.

And those components are all portable. So you can just take them someplace else as your units come vacant; just give it to your property manager if you're out of state or just keep it there. And as soon as a tenant moves in, you move the system to another place that's vacant or just hold it back. And you can have the police come if you want to pay an extra 25 bucks a month, something like that.

But it's more important that you just know who's coming and going because what you're up against on the front end, Seth, is time. Time is what these people need to get established. Because if you know about it, straight away, they're not going to get established. Because, you know, “Hey, police, there's a guy in my house.” And if the cops are confronted with just a guy who's in a house, and plus if there's signs of forced entry, then they're going to be like, okay, man, get the heck out of here. If they’re like, “Oh, I have a lease,” you can be like, “Okay, well, how, when did your lease start? Like 10 minutes ago, I've got you on camera breaking into this place.” Or even if they’ve gone through a window or something.

You can show video evidence to cops. You can send it to them. I've texted video evidence to cops like, “I've got some guy who's in my dog run.” “Okay. Do you have the video? Do you want to send it to me?” And I've just sent it to him. And so that's a possibility. And it creates a scenario where it's a whole lot more difficult to fool the law enforcement.

Whereas if you give them time to get established—they've moved in with their friends, they got their furniture, they've mowed the lawn—it becomes much more difficult. And how much time do they need? They can set up something plausible if they're really executing within a few hours. But if there's any signs of forced entry, guys will kick in the door and fix the doorframe. That's going to take a minute. They just need some time. They need a few days usually.

Seth: Yeah. So it sounds like the key thing that would basically fix the problem is if you had video of footage of them, like breaking a window or breaking through a door. Like, boom, that's it; they're done, right?

George: Yeah, pretty much. In fact, there was one case… so a lot of these case studies were pretty entertaining. I've got, I heard about people putting snakes down the chimney. A guy did the same thing with rats and mice.

But one guy, what he did—this is really interesting—he went to his house, his vacant property, and there was a guy in there. And so he comes to the door and the guy opens it and says, “What do you want?” And he says, “Well, I'm the owner. What are you doing here?” And he's just like, “No, this is my place now.” And so slams the door in his face.

So the owner looks around. There's no sign of forced entry or anything. So he's like, oh, man, this guy is like, he had moved in. Some stuff is kind of like on the line of plausibility. And so what the owner did is kick in the door. He just kicks in the door. He doesn't walk in there. He just kicks in the door and then walks back to his car and calls the cops, he says, “Hey cops, you're not going to believe this, but this guy just kicked in my door and like moved in it, like moved in his stuff. It’s clearly breaking and entering.”

So the cops show up, there are signs of forced entry. And that's a whole different scenario than a guy who's got a key to the place, changed the locks, you know, gotten established. This guy didn't have a key and the door was kicked in and it made an open-and-shut case for the cops.

Seth: Wow. So if the signs of forced entry aren't there, create them. And then you've got the deed and everything else to back up yourself. And you can just, as long as there's not video evidence of you doing it, then I guess you could. I mean, who's going to say otherwise, right?

George: Right. I mean, so if you've got video, if you've got your camera there and you're like, just arriving, so if you have your camera there, chances are, you're probably not going to encounter this scenario in the first place.

But this is a scenario where there was no camera. There was nothing. He hadn't been there in weeks. And so he was able to basically exploit the fact that we could demonstrate to the cop that there was forced entry.

But with these, I can't, in earnest and wholeheartedly, I got to put a little disclaimer and I do this in the Squatter Defender course. I say, all right, here are some things that people have done and they have worked. Can I recommend all of these things? No, I can't recommend that you do that because, if you kick in someone's door, they could be waiting on the other side with like a rifle or something and that could be bad. And the reason that they have all these laws is to prevent violent altercations. And when you kick in a door, you're kind of asking for it, right?

So I present this not as like, “This is an option and you guys should totally do this.” I present it as like, “Here's something that's happened. So take this information and use it how you will.”

Seth: It's kind of a random question. I don't know if you ever get this, but is this kind of thing with squatting? Is this the thing in other countries too? Or is it just a fundamental problem with the law in the U.S.? Do you ever hear from people in any other country in the world that have this problem? And if so, do the same remedies work there?

George: Yeah. You know, it's funny you mentioned that because when the “I Stole a House” video went viral, I actually got forwarded an article from a boy. Where was it from? Like a Romanian newspaper or something saying, “Hey, it looks like they're having this problem in America too.” I was thinking, whoa, okay.

So it's pretty much any country, any civilized country that has landlord-tenant law where when people move into a place, you can't just kick them out. I think there's a lot more places that are maybe a little bit more authoritarian where if you've got the owner to the house and the owner says, “All right, this guy can't be here,” that you can just yank him out and there are really no laws protecting tenants.

But in America, we've got a lot of that. But also, there's a lot of countries that have those kinds of laws on the books and they're essentially pulling the same scam elsewhere as well. It's nowhere near as prevalent, but it does happen. And I've gotten little snippets here and there of it happening in England and France and it's happening everywhere.

Seth: Now, you may have already mentioned this and maybe I just missed it. As you were talking, we've kind of established how squatters can cost tens of thousands, if not much more, for the property owner to get rid of them. And these costs come in the form of legal fees, damage to the property, and all this stuff.

But how exactly does the squatter make money? Do they do this because the property owner pays them off to leave? Like, is that the only play in which they make money or are there other ways that squatters can squeeze cash out of the situation?

George: So there's a few profit centers. So the first and foremost, there is occupying a place that would cost three grand a month or something. I think the average house in America is worth like $2,600 per month in rent, which is higher than it's ever been in history. So first and foremost, that's what they're getting: a free place to stay to the tune of $2,600 per month.

And then a common scam is they have their friends move in and they charge their friends. It's not like the squatter occupies it and says, “Okay, fellas, it's a free for all.” It's like, “No, you're going to rent this bedroom. It's going to cost you 300 bucks a month instead of 600 bucks a month or 600 instead of 1200.” So he's got all his scumbag friends moving in.

And plus, they're not being judged for trashing a place or using drugs. It's a big party. There's been like DJ booths and stripper poles and all sorts of stolen property in these places that I've heard about. And so they get to party their faces off and it's all okay with who they're paying rent to. So, yeah, so it's basically not paying for rent and then renting the place out to their friends.

But the ultimate goal of the squatter, these people that are sophisticated, is getting paid off with cash for keys, unfortunately. And it brings me no joy to talk about cash for keys as a viable option. But unfortunately, the reality is that it is a viable option if you're staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars and you know it, the squatter knows it, the lawyer knows it, and you say, All right, well, either pony up tens of thousands of dollars to fight this and have it be protracted over several months, or the squatter says, “Yo, man, I'll leave if you just give me 5K or 10K or 30K.” I've heard cash for keys demands of up to a hundred thousand dollars.

And in a lot of cases, from the standpoint of somebody who just wants to reclaim their property, it really sucks that you got to like perpetuate the scam, encourage the squatter, and really empower them to keep doing it because, essentially they've stolen from you and you're paying them more to stop stealing from you.

But again, if you look at it objectively, you think, all right, well, 5K today and I get my place back or 40K down the road. You're not always going to want to need and want to fight the good fight. And sometimes people push the easy button. I've pushed the easy button myself with tenants and done cash for keys.

And if you're in the game long enough, Seth, you and I both know this, eventually you've got to pay some people off in this regard. And it's no fun, but it's an option.

Seth: Now, why would the law make it easy for squatters to do this, ever? Like, why would they ever treat the squatter as the victim and the property owner is like… is it because the law is actually set up to treat legitimate tenants as the victims? But these people are stepping into the shoes of the tenant, so they're using that loophole and that's why the law protects them.

George: That's exactly it. They're exploiting a loophole that essentially puts them, just like you're saying, Seth, in the shoes of the tenant.

And so they're masquerading as a tenant, and that's where they're afforded the set of rights. And so they don't have “squatter’s rights.” I mean, people throw around the term “squatter’s rights,” and it's usually like adverse possession and gets tossed around a lot. There's no such thing as full-blown “squatter’s rights.” It's the rights that are afforded to them as occupants over a certain period of time, like in New York over 30 days, gaining status as tenants.

But in some places, they're actually starting to fight back a little bit. In Florida, actually, they signed some legislation earlier this year a few months ago that doesn't effectively kill the squatter scam, but it makes fewer squatters. And if you get caught and it's proven that you never had a lease and you're breaking in there, then yeah, it's like a Class B felony, like you can get in really big trouble. And other states are starting to knock it around a little bit, but they haven't really done the same thing as they're doing in Florida.

So what it's done is it's increased the risk profile for the squatter. So they can still do it. And yes, they can still get away with it, but it's harder. And the stakes are higher for them. They're going to, and he's like, All right, I can make 50K doing this, but the downside is, yeah, I could actually have like a rap sheet. I could go to prison. So they're going to think twice.

Seth: There's a subreddit called UnethicalLifeProTips. The original one’s called LifeProTips. It's all about just cool tricks in life that can make life better. The UnethicalLifeProTips is like, how do you do things that will get things done? And somebody had said here, “Watch them, learn their schedule. They have to leave at some point. And change the locks and move in. Get ready for when the police come and question you. Get your paperwork in order, feign ignorance of who those people are and release your inner Karen.”

So, I mean, if you did do that, if you changed the locks so they couldn't get in and you were prepared with everything you needed to prove that you were the owner, would that do it? Or is there something I'm overlooking there?

George: In a word, Seth, yes, that works. And that is another thing I talk about in Squatter Defender. That's a version of what they call “squatting on the squatter.”

And so we talked a little before about how difficult it is to remove somebody from a property, but how easily you can insert somebody when you insert yourself or somebody else into a property that's being squatted on. Then, essentially, you guys are now roommates. You guys all have a claim to the place.

And if the cops show up and the guy says, “Hey, this guy just showed up out of nowhere.” And then you say, “Well, I have a lease from the owner” or “I am the owner. You can see right here on the deed. If you look it up, I own the place, and yeah, this guy. We can't seem to get rid of them, but me, I live here. This is me.”

And you set up cameras; you make their life into a big reality show and you make life uncomfortable for them. And in a lot of cases, squatters are looking for the hapless victims. They're going to be like, “Eek, a squatter. I'm calling my lawyer.” And then a long, protracted legal process takes place. They're really looking for that type of victim, like 90-some-percent of the time. And if you've got somebody that's actually going to put up a fight and move in themselves or a few of their buddies or a squatter removal contractor, that's more often than not going to do the trick.

And if they don't, then you move it to the next level, where you do things like change the locks and move their stuff out, putting their stuff through a wood chipper. It kind of crosses the line into another thing that I can't recommend or endorse, but this is something that people have done. But of all the things, I call them in Squatter Defender “the unconventional methods.” This one's my favorite. Because it's worked over and over again. I like that it works and I like the elegance of it—how it's kind of exploiting the law kind of backwards against the squatter.

But what I don't like about it is that when homeowners try and do this themselves, bad things can happen. So the squatter comes home. There's Seth. He's parked on the couch, eating Doritos. The squatter attacks you. These are desperate people. Sometimes you get those white-collar Beverly Hills people that are squatting and they're probably not going to do a darn thing, but there are people that will do you harm.

And there are cases that I studied, unfortunately, where the squatter unalived the homeowner, and that's pretty much the worst-case scenario. And you don't know a whole lot about those interactions and altercations because one of the parties is no longer alive, but I'd be willing to bet it's something on the order of, “Get out!” And then things get raised and somebody ends up hurt or worse.

Seth: So switching gears a little bit, let's talk about title fraud. What is title fraud?

George: So remember, Seth, every time you bought a property, you bought a piece of land and that big stack of documents—most of them are loan documents, but one of them is the deed. And for those who don't know, the deed is the document that has a grantor and a grantee signatures on both. And that has the notary stamp.

Remember the notary that was at your closing? That's one of the sheets that they're stamping. And then after they stamp it, that document gets taken down to the recorder, like through the tax recorder for that county in particular, where the property is located. And the recorder takes a look at it. Oops, got all the moving parts, got the seal. Okay. Recording it. And then that goes on to the chain of title.

And what deed fraud is—title fraud, deed fraud, home title theft, all the same thing—that is, is a forgery of this document. And what you're forging is pretty easy to forge. It's not like forging like a hundred-dollar bill or like a fake ID to get into bars with a special raised anchor or any sort of special hologram. No, it's a piece of paper that has a notary stamp on it. That's just a regular old rubber stamp.

And yeah, the companies that make the rubber stamps make sure that you're a notary before you order one. But if I had a task to either forge a hundred-dollar bill or forge a rubber stamp, which one do you think I'd pick? Right?

And so they either forge it, steal the stamp, or like, impersonate it. And they put the property in their name and what they do at that point, they've got a lot of options.

But how actually I learned about this is that I heard that squatters were starting to do that. They were going to put their names on the property as owners, which I was like, Whoa, that's either really smart or really stupid because the cops, once they unravel it, they'll be like, All right, well, you clearly stole this house. But then if they do it with a fake ID, which are pretty easy to get on the dark web these days, then you've got options. But yeah, that's basically it in a nutshell.

Seth: This whole title fraud thing, I'm a bit perplexed by it. How is the issue going to get solved? Because you're right. I mean, there are so many ways to commit title fraud and it's really easy to do. It's not hard at all to do this. And there are so many different levels at which you can do it. And it can seriously screw things up for people. I mean, I've heard of scammers who create their own fake websites for title companies to make it look like a title company when it's not. It's almost overwhelming how vulnerable this current title system is with people being able to commit fraud.

I actually have a friend of mine. He's a land investor. He does a lot of his deals in Florida. I heard him saying earlier this year that he would estimate that about 10% of the motivated seller leads that come through his website, “Yeah, I want to sell my land,” are scammers, people that don't own the land at all. And when you're dealing with that amount of people who are going out of their way to try to like commit crimes, basically, it's a huge problem.

And I'm just wondering, with the way the current system works and just all of its flaws, I don't know when or how it's ever going to get updated or put on blockchain or whatever it has to do to make it more secure. But given that we're kind of stuck with this now, what are we supposed to do to protect ourselves? It seems like a huge issue.

George: That's just it, man. I've heard about some solutions being knocked around, like being put on blockchain and things like that. And that really does make a ton of sense. But the thing is, it needs to be universally adopted. It's like every network having to agree to be on Netflix. It's just not easy to do. And so that, ultimately, is what needs to happen.

But that's going to take a massive overhaul with literally every single county in the entire country, which runs and governs itself. So a solution on the recording of the deeds—that's going to be a ways off, I'm pretty sure. But what you can do in the meantime is make sure that your title is in your name. It sounds simple, but if you go online, you can find your property. It's going to say this property belongs to Seth Williams or Seth Williams LLC. And you check that. Okay, everything's cool.

But if you check it the next day and it's been deeded over to somebody you don't recognize, then, uh-oh, okay, you got a problem. But of course, nobody's checking every single day. Like, I mean, nobody checks their deeds. It's just not a thing. But these days you kind of have to.

So that's what I created with Title Fraud Defender. It's a system that automatically checks it every single day and makes sure that it hasn't been transferred. And if it has, then it notifies you because it's so there's no way to actually stop it. The stealing of the document as of right now; there's no way to stop it. But what you want to prevent is the theft of your equity because it's not covered by a standard ALTA owner's policy.

And it's sort of like the impersonation of the title companies you're talking about. That's like a wire fraud scam. Those wire fraud scams, you probably heard about people not getting their money back. And then the same with these title fraud scams: people are not getting their money back. And so what you want to prevent is the financial devastation of losing all of your equity.

Seth: I guess, how far can this go? And how do you unravel this problem? Let's say I own a property in Wyoming or something like that. Somebody just decides to create a fake deed, sign my signature as if I did it (when I didn't), and then get a fake notary stamp, record the thing, and then I'm going to get a fake notary stamp. And then that person then sells it to somebody else for a hundred thousand dollars. And then they sell it to somebody else for a hundred.

Like, how far can this go before it's caught? And how do you retroactively fix all of those problems and unwind this mess that's created?

George: Yeah. Very good question, Seth. And this is something that I don't get into very often because this is kind of like the nitty-gritty level, but to unravel all of this, when you've got a chain in title that's been like corrupted like this, here’s what you need to do.

So first off, in that case, if you had some land in Wyoming, you've got Title Fraud Defender, you heard about it and you put the kibosh on it right quick, your equity is safe. And so that's like the best-case scenario and you're pretty good.

But if you didn't do that and that person deeded it to themselves, they sold it to somebody else; the person built a house that was sold to another guy. And then seven years later, you got a real mess on your hands.

So the sooner it is, sort of like with a squatting thing, time is not on your side. But what needs to happen to fix the corrupted chain of title is what's called an “action to quiet title.” And so that is a lawsuit. You have to lawyer up and you have to file an action to quiet title. And that's basically what fixes the chain of title, because you can't just call up the recorder and be like, “Hey, this was a fraudulent transfer. Go fix it.” And the recorder says, “Oh, yeah, sure. Sounds good. You know, just update the ledger here. All right. Thanks for calling.”

But no, it doesn't work like that. Updating a chain of title is a big deal. So that's why you need a lawsuit to make that happen. And some of them are really simple and really cheap. And if you've been notified of the transfer with Title Fraud Defender, you're good. That's going to be open-and-shut, no problem.

But if it's a scenario like we're talking about where it got sold and resold and sold again, and the house got built on it, then demolished and the theme park goes in, yeah, you got something expensive to deal with and you're not going to have it covered by insurance, unfortunately.

Seth: So let's say I've got this Title Fraud Defender and it notifies me that somebody just stole my title like yesterday. What do I do? How do I fix this? Is it the quiet title action or is there some easier way I can say, “Nope. You don't get to do that.”

George: Well, so there's a whole list of things. We give you a checklist and it's actually in the Squatter Defender product. And then part, as part of your subscription to Title Fraud Defender, we actually walk you through the process, but essentially, you call up your title company and you say that you have your policy with, and you say, “Hey, my property title has been stolen. I want to file a claim.”

Chances are, they're not going to actually give you the claim, but because again, with the ALTA owner's policy, it's not going to cover fraud and impersonation from the policy date going forward. But then you also want to call up your county recorder's office and file an affidavit saying that, like, hey, there's been a false filing.

And so what this does is essentially raise red flags and anybody that they're going to sell the property to, the fraudster is going to sell the property to, they're going to get title insurance. It's possible they might not, but especially if you're dealing with somebody who actually knows what they're doing, like a wholesaler, somebody who can close quickly, that's advantageous to them is to call up somebody that can close quickly, because they kind of want to get like, in and out, they're going to use title insurance.

And so then the title company is going to say, “Okay, well, no, it looks like we got affidavits, we got red flags here, we're not going to insure this.” And so then the buyer is tipped off. And suddenly the fraudster has a piece of land or a property that he can't do anything with. And so then, at that point, you do the quiet title action.

And there's a handful of other things that you do as well to kind of just cover your bases. And then you want to get the district attorney involved because you got to investigate a fraud case. And it's a whole list of things. But if you're a subscriber, which is just a few bucks a month, then we walk you through it. And we're like, all right, here's what you do. And that eventually will fix the thing.

It's no fun to file a lawsuit. It's no fun to have to go through a big process, calling up the DEA and everything. But what you're avoiding is having your equity stolen. I mean, what matters the most? It's the money, right? Whether it's a few grand or a few million, that's what you want to protect—your equity, because that's what you worked for.

Seth: Yeah. Gotcha. What do you think is a bigger problem right now? Is it the squatting or is it the title fraud?

George: Yeah. Title fraud is a bit more devastating financially because I think the average home equity right now in America is about $300,000 per household, which is higher than it's ever been. $33 trillion in total wealth. And that's the single biggest source of wealth in the entire country.

And so all of that is exposed and that's just in home equity. I mean, forget about commercial and whatnot. I mean, that's a whole lot more and you can just as easily steal the title of a commercial property as well.

So title fraud is going to be, in my opinion, much more financially devastating because that's where people's wealth is. That's where people's money is. And if it's not covered by insurance, then you're in a real bad way financially. But with squatters, it's just much more prevalent. It's just much more easy.

When you talk about, if you wake up as a criminal, most of these guys are kind of lazy. They're not that smart. And they're just looking for something quick, something now. They're not looking to commit a white collar crime like a deed fraud as often. They’re just like, okay, I could just move into this house and I'm going to be cool. All right, off we go.

So there's just more and more instances of squatting, and it is financially devastating, but I've yet to hear of a single case where a squatter has not ever been removed. Like, okay, the squatter won it; eventually he moved in and he was fraudulent and he got the house. That's just never happened. It's just time and money. And sometimes it's a lot of money, but it's never actually had like an unhappy ending where the squatter wins.

Seth: So if I am paranoid about title fraud, is the simple way to fix that just to make sure when I buy a property, just close with the title company and get title insurance? Like, is that pretty much it? That'll solve the problem?

George: Yeah, that's pretty much it. So if you're the end buyer, then yeah, you're buying, you're going to be buying a property with a title insurance policy that will cover fraud and impersonation. Just make sure that's in the language. I mean, title companies are all selling pretty much the same ALTA policies, the ALTA owner's policy. It'll cover back in time. So if you buy a property and that person who you're buying it from, or at least the person who got frauded that's in the past, then yeah, it's going to cover your financial loss from that. If, say you buy some land, and then you're halfway through the foundation on a new build.

And it's like, oh, okay, we're going to have to revert the title back to this other guy. It's like, okay, well, I'm 100 grand into this build. Like, yeah, no, it's going to you're going to probably have coverage. I mean, you got to read the fine print in your policy, but you're probably going to be okay. What you don't want to be is the first guy, the victim, the victim who's getting stolen from.

Seth: Yeah, definitely. Well, on the whole title company issue, how are they protecting themselves? I mean, given how easy it is to create fake driver's licenses and like even deepfake videos and stuff, like how, what can a title be supposed to do to make sure they're truly dealing with the right person?

George: Dude, I don't know. That's the question I've gotten; it's like, Hey, George, how do you fix this? What sort of security measures can you put in?

And you know with the chain of title, I think blockchain is a good idea but we talked about how that is going to be like a massive undertaking. With title companies. I don't know, because the way that things have always worked is, it's a certain way. And I haven't come up with a process that actually really protects them from having to pay out a bunch of money when an end buyer buys the place.

And then, it turns out there was deed fraud and then they have to pay out a claim. They can make title insurance more expensive. And, hopefully, by the time an end buyer comes along, hopefully there's a, like they'll have been made aware of it and they can head it off at the pass. But more often than not, that's just not the case, but only one of those guys gets coverage, but still it's a hole in the title company's budget. They're going to have to pay out on it. And so the original guy who got frauded isn't going to get any of that.

Seth: Yeah. I don't know exactly what they're doing, but I have to imagine they're probably utilizing knowledge-based authentication tests. If you're ever taking those tests where it gives you a multiple choice, like, which of these four cars did you own in the past 20 years? And like only you would know the answer to that. I think that is one potential solution.

Aside from that, though, I don't know, getting your dental records and blood tests and all this stuff. I don't know how else they would truly know they're dealing with the right person. Even if you show up in person. I mean, you could still probably find ways to fake that and print off a fake ID with your picture on it in that person's name. I mean, if you really wanted to, like if your life depended on it, there are probably all kinds of crazy things you could do to fool somebody.

George: Oh yeah and that's the whole game. They actually put their picture on the fake ID. And when the notary comes to sign you, whether it's mobile notary or if you walk into the title office, they're not, I mean, they look at your ID, but they're not professionals. They're not cops or bouncers. They just want to make sure that the person that's signing is the person on the ID.

And so I've never had a notary really look at my license and look at me be like, “Hmm, looks like you grew a beard, George. Is this really you?”

No, they just glance at it, make sure it's cool. They write down your driver's license number. They've done it seven other times already today. And same with the title companies. I mean, how many properties do they close every single day at every title company? Like dozens, right?

So if there are security measures put into place, then it's got to be for every single transaction. And that could get cumbersome, depending on what they are. So one thing that title companies do these days is that if somebody has an escrow contract for a property, like, all right, hey, just so you know, we got an escrow for your property at this address. And since you're the owner, here's a notification and it'll send it by certified mail.

The problem is if the title thief is transferring the deed, they're not going through escrow. They're just going straight to the recorder's office and they're not using any title insurance or a title company.

Seth: So you mentioned, in passing, Squatter Defender and Title Defender. What exactly are these things—these courses or software? What is this stuff?

George: Yeah, good question. So Squatter Defender is basically an afternoon of courses and instruction that teaches squatter prevention, detection, and ejection. And by the end of it, you become a certified squatter defender.

And really what you get is, you know how to prevent squatters from going into your properties. You’re armed with all the knowledge and then you understand what your options are and what the nuances are to the situation. However, different situations call for different measures.

And by the end of it, after you've taken the quizzes and you get your certificate, you're basically just demonstrating that you are fully aware and fully informed about how to deal with squatters. And I always say that if you complete the course, you're going to know more about the squatter scam than your lawyer by the end of it. Because with all that I learned after going viral and talking to all these people in law enforcement, attorneys, and property managers, there's a wealth of knowledge out there, but it was never consolidated into one single source. And that was the aim with the Squatter Defender course.

And then Title Fraud Defender, pretty simple. You sign up for a subscription and it's a few bucks per month, depending on how many properties you want to put in there. And that monitors your property title to prevent your equity being stolen from a title fraud. And that's titlefrauddefender.com.

Seth: Talk a little bit about going viral. I don't know what that's like. I've never had a video of viral before. I mean, viral to the level that you're talking about tens of millions of views.

George: Dude, it was crazy. It was wild, man. It honestly kind of changed my life a little bit.

The main takeaways are, first off, it's like some people are mean. There are a lot of people that had something to say about me, everything from my appearance to the fact that I had the nerve to be in real estate and be a landlord at all. And then other people saying that I was a big wimp, I guess you could say. For not “shooting your squatters.”

Then it got very highly politicized and very much resonated with a conservative audience. And so I had some far-right people that were reposting the article and saying, “We should hunt this guy down.” And then far-left people saying, “Hey, look at this privileged landlord pretending to be a squatter. Does he not understand that squatters are people, too?” And yada, yada.

Seth: People hated you from both sides., huh?

George: Yeah, really. It was really like kind of the wingnuts on the right and left, but I was really shocked at how, I gues, politicized the whole thing ended up being, which is kind of everything these days. But most of the reactions that I got were positive. People said, “Man this is great!” And “Great video. I think it's really great you're exposing this scam. I salute you.”

And then when TV stations and personalities started calling me up, it was overwhelming. I was just going through my regular work day and my phone was just exploding. Like, everybody I've ever met was texting me and emailing me. It was really just drinking from the fire hose. I had difficulty sleeping for a couple of nights because I would open up my phone and my notifications every single time. I just swiped down to refresh and the whole thing would just explode all over again.

Again, I've never experienced anything like that. And anybody who's gone viral will tell you, like, you know, you get a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. But overall, I'd say it was a good experience. It gave me thicker skin and it led to discovering that there is an underserved market here.

And entrepreneurs like you, Seth, we're always constantly looking at things through the lens of, is there an opportunity? And it led me to believe, “Okay, you know what? I really think there is an opportunity here.” There's no consolidated information on squatters. There's no expert; there's no figurehead. And I know enough about it already. What if I just got really good at this? And so that led to an opportunity.

And, but it wasn't until actually weeks after going viral that things kind of died down. A friend of mine said, “Hey man, all this internet fame you've gotten with the squatter video, how much money have you made off of that? Has it been a lot?” And I'm like, “Uh, exactly $0.” And so he's like, Oh, that's weird. I thought you got money for views and stuff.

And I was like, “Well, kind of, I got reposted a bunch of times to different Twitter accounts and it got taken down off of like Tiktok and Instagram that reposted.” And so it's kind of a mess. So maybe there was a scenario where I could have made a buck off of that.

But yeah, it's not just in the name of monetizing this experience, Seth. It's really about giving value in a place where I think there's been an absolute void in value and helping people with this scam in particular.

And it's also my community. It's the real estate community. They've gotten so much from that over the years, from creators, from colleagues, from meetups, and I'm giving back in a way. And it's in a meaningful way that my income is going to probably be 95% real estate by the end of the year. I am hoping that the Title Fraud Defender and Squatter Defender are a success. I really am. And I'm going to promote the heck out of it.

But really, at the end of the day, my objective is to bring value and to help people. And I think I've done that so far.

Seth: So Squatter Defender, Title Defender, is there some kind of coupon code people can use if they want to get a discount or something on either one of those things?

George: Yes, indeed. So if you go to titlefrauddefender.com and squatterdefender.com, Squatter Defender actually launches September 1st. I'm not sure when this is airing, but it should be out there. And the coupon code you can use is in honor of you, Seth. It is the code name or coupon code name, Seth, S-E-T-H. And that will get you 20% off on all products.

So if you sign up for a year-long subscription, two years, three years, I really like the long-term deals because you get great economies of scale with multiple properties over many years. Then that knocks off a good chunk of what you're going to pay. But there are other companies that do basically the same thing. Most of them aren't going to help you fix your title if anything goes wrong. And they also charge about twice as much or three times as much. In fact, the market leader, I think, is like 20 bucks a month. And, you know, we're a maximum of five bucks a month, billed annually.

Seth: So yeah, I like that pricing better. 20 bucks a month for something that probably won't happen.

George: Probably won't happen. Yeah.

Seth: Five bucks is much easier to stomach. It's almost like a cost I cannot even feel. It just sort of happens.

George: Exactly. Yeah. 20 bucks. Like, I mean, that kind of crosses the line for me. And plus, I mean, I'm not sure maybe they just get away with it, but we built software that's very efficient and very elegant. And so we were able to kind of be a low-cost provider because, I went to the developers when I was building this thing, I was like, “Yo, this has got to do this thing. It's got to be a one-trick pony, but it's got to do it really well. And it's got to be able to do it inexpensively.”

And as with my experience as a real estate investor and getting data and access to APIs, because we're both, Seth, you and I, we’re contacting sellers. We're trying to make deals. These data providers, they charge anywhere from a little to a lot for all their data. And so that was a big part of making this extremely efficient in terms of verifying property ownership data on an ongoing basis.

And so that's why we're able to cut our users such a great deal and basically be what is now the lowest cost in the marketplace. I mean, maybe we'll get undercut at some point or another, but if we do, I don't know. I don't think we're going to lower it down, because we've got it about as low as we can and still be able to provide good service if anything does go wrong.

But you're right, Seth, you're probably not going to be title frauded, but if you are, it's really, really bad. So it's sort of, all right, well, how much equity in all my properties do I have? It's like, okay, a hundred grand, 500, 2 million, 8 million. All right. For that much per month? All right, yeah. Heck, you know.

Seth: Yeah, totally. Now, before we wrap this up, one random question: are you familiar with the term “phrogging?” P-H-R-O-G-G-I-N-G.

George: No, although I like it. That's kind of a fun word. I'm guessing it's something bad, though.

Seth: So we did an article on this at REtipster. I didn't write the thing, but Brian Davis, one of our writers, put it together. And basically it's a person, a phrog, P-H-R-O-G, is a person who secretly moves into someone else's home or business while it's occupied by the rightful owner to live there temporarily.

So it's like they're not trying to steal it necessarily. They're just like staying there without the owner knowing, I think. Like hiding in the attic or something like that. So I don't know if that had any crossover to what you do with squatting or if you were at all aware of that, but it sounds like it's a different thing.

George: That's interesting. So basically, like when the family's at work or at school, you go in there, eat their chips, take a nap on the couch, and be out before they come home, basically.

Seth: Yeah. So I guess one example here, and this is like a real example, is a Japanese man discovered that a woman had been living in his closet for a year. And he eventually grew suspicious after food kept disappearing from his refrigerator.

George: That is hilarious.

Seth: It seems like you'd have to be really desperate. And almost like, the person who does this legitimately needs housing rather than trying to extort people for much money, maybe? I don't know; maybe I'm wrong, but yeah.

George: I mean, the thing with squatting is they're openly and notoriously saying, “Yo, I have a legitimate claim to this.” This is sort of a little bit more, I guess, kind of sneaky, and trying not to actually get caught, or actually put it in their face that they're actually trying to commit this crime.

I did hear kind of a version of this in commercial properties. There was a space above, I can't remember, like an OfficeMax or a Home Depot. And there's a space where the sign was. And there was a person that had been living there for years. And they just climbed up the back of the building and they would stay there at night and then leave in the morning.

So they weren't really bothering anybody per se. It wasn't rentable, leasable space. It was really just that they were just kind of trespassing somewhere they probably weren't allowed. And then when they were discovered, they say, okay, cool. And they didn't stay, make a claim that they had title to the property or anything like that. They just kind of moved along.

But yeah, I have heard about that. And then also, like, sleeping in the back of a grocery store or something like that. To me, these are completely different things.

You know, it's almost kind of funny; it reminds me a little bit of the movie Rudy. It's one of my favorite movies of all time and that's where he gets the key from the janitor because he doesn't have any place to stay and he sleeps in the equipment room and then he's gone the next morning before anybody shows up.

So it's a bit of a victimless crime. At least in the movie, you're rooting for Rudy. So, it's totally okay. But yeah, he's not eating people's Doritos.

Seth: That will be a true crime right there.

George: Right? Like you're not leaving the toilet seat up or anything.

So yeah. Phrogging. I'll take a closer look at that, but I don't know. My feeling on that is that in comparison to squatting, actual proper squatting, it's downright playful. You don't want that, and like, no, don't phrog on my house, pretty please, sugar on top. But it doesn't sound quite as bad.

Seth: It does seem like we're living in an age where this is more manageable now than it ever has been. Just in terms of technology, like getting a little Nest camera set up to just always look at something, that can solve so many problems. Like you would see anybody coming and going, that kind of thing.

I mean, it's still annoying, but, think back 30 years ago, like this wasn't really a feasible thing people could have done, at least not very easily.

George: Oh yeah. No. In this day and age, you can monitor everything. And there's no reason why I shouldn't. I've got cameras all over my house. I got them in the living room. I got in the backyard, pointed at the chicken coop and the dog run and the fences. and I get little alerts sometimes. Like I don't have it waking me up in the middle of the night, but I'll wake up and be like, hey, you know, there's motion in your dog run.

And there's a couple of raccoons or something like that. It ends up being like a wildlife cam most of the time. But if anything were to go wrong, then I will have footage of somebody breaking in or stealing my bike or stealing something from my backyard.

And these are hard crimes to prosecute. It's not like they're going to chase them down, but maybe you'll see him. Maybe you'll get your stuff back. Who knows? It's good to know what happened. I'm a big camera guy. Like, buy all the cameras, set them up. And even if you never check them, be able to check them in case something goes wrong.

Seth: Yeah. We've actually got 21 of them set up at my self-storage facility. And it's really interesting. Like I almost never look at them, but every now and then there's something that happens where it's really, really helpful just to be able to know, is this person lying? Did they back into the building and screw it all up or just did somebody break in all this stuff?

So, yeah. And it's not that expensive.

George: Trust, but verify. Yeah. It's a big part of the verify. It's like, “Oh, me? I didn't hit that part with my truck! I'm not going to pay that out of my damage deposit.” “Well, actually, sorry, sir. I'm afraid you're mistaken.”

And so that's a good thing. Yeah, I've owned businesses before and I've always had tons of cameras.

Seth: Well, George, thanks again for coming on. Again, if anybody wants to check out titlefrauddefender.com or squatterdefender.com, go check it out. You can also go to retipster.com/193. That's where we got the show notes with links to everything we talked about. Again, you can use the promo code S-E-T-H if you decide to use either one of those things.

And George, appreciate what you're doing for the real estate community. It seems like an issue that definitely needs to be addressed better. And it sounds like you're doing a good job of getting after it.

George: Thanks so much, Seth. I appreciate that. And if anybody wants to contact me on social, I'm pretty easy to find: McCleary Realty and Development is my company on Facebook and Instagram and also on Tiktok.

But send me a message. Let me know what's happening with you. If you got a squatter situation, you got a title theft situation, I love to hear about it. I've been talking with all sorts of property owners for quite a while now. And I'm happy to help. So follow me on social. I try and post only good stuff only when necessary. And, yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Seth: Awesome. Thanks again, George. And we'll talk to you next time.

George: Awesome. Thanks Seth.