Squatters and vacant property in Mississippi: what the law says

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(1)(c) — HB 1200 (2025), Ch. 474, eff. 2025-07-01

Quoted from the enrolled bill as sent to the Governor, on the Legislature's own server. Its history record on the same server gives DISPOSITION "Law", CHAPTER 474, EFFECTIVE DATE July 1, 2025 (billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2025/pdf/history/HB/HB1200.xml, read 2026-07-14). Read the two exclusions: a person with heirship rights is NOT a squatter under this act, and neither, by the definition of "Owner" in § 2(1)(b), is anyone you are not the deeded owner against.

2 · Miss. Code § 89-8-3(1), as amended by HB 1200 (2025), § 3

A second 2025 act, SB 2328 (Ch. 460), amended the same subsection and carries the same sentence. Two chapters of the 2025 laws therefore touch § 89-8-3, and a human should confirm how the official code prints the merged section.

3 · Miss. Code § 89-8-7(1)(m), as amended by HB 1200 (2025), § 4

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(c) and § 2(4)(c) — HB 1200 (2025)

The ellipsis joins § 2(3)(c) — the uncontested path — to § 2(4)(c), the path after a hearing. Read what the act assigns and to whom: in both, the remover is the law enforcement agency. The act nowhere authorises the owner to do it.

2 · Miss. Code § 11-25-1 — unlawful entry and detainer; who may have the summary remedy · secondhand source

SECONDARY: the official Mississippi Code is published by LexisNexis, which blocks automated retrieval. This was read on FindLaw, marked "Current as of January 01, 2025", and should be confirmed against the official code. Note the words the section opens with — "Any one deprived of the possession of land by force, intimidation, fraud, stratagem, stealth" — and note that they are not limited to a tenant. This is the section an OWNER uses against a squatter. Whether the same words reach a person an owner locks out is a question we found no Mississippi decision resolving, and it is not ours to answer.

3 · HB 1200 (2025), read in full on 2026-07-14 — what we searched, and did not find

On 2026-07-14 we read HB 1200 in full and looked in Mississippi's landlord-tenant chapters for a section saying in terms that an owner or landlord may not change the locks, shut off utilities, or set a person's belongings out. We did not find one, and the secondary write-ups we read contradict each other on whether Mississippi permits it. WE THEREFORE STATE NO RULE. What the act itself says is quoted above: the process an owner is given "to commence the process to expel a squatter" is a sworn affidavit filed with law enforcement. DeedProof does not advise on lockouts and never will — it is a crime in most states, it is dangerous, and it turns the victim into the defendant. Ask a Mississippi lawyer.

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(a) — the crime of squatting (HB 1200, 2025)

Read the last clause. The crime is complete when the person remains "after written notification to leave the premises" — from the owner, the owner's agent, or the law enforcement agency. On the face of the section the written notice comes first.

2 · HB 1200 (2025), § 6(1) — the felony we DID find a grade for

On 2026-07-14 we read HB 1200 in full and looked for the penalty attached to the crime of squatting in § 2(3)(a). We did not find one. Section 6 grades three new felonies — a false lease or deed (quoted here), damaging a dwelling you unlawfully occupy by more than $1,000, and renting or listing a property you do not own — and each carries two to five years. The crime of squatting itself is graded in no section of the act we read. The grade is what decides whether an officer may arrest, so the next two links are where an owner has to look.

3 · Miss. Code § 99-19-31 — penalty where none fixed elsewhere by statute · secondhand source

SECONDARY: read on FindLaw ("Current as of January 01, 2025"); the official code is behind LexisNexis. WE DRAW NO CONCLUSION about whether this section supplies the penalty for the crime of squatting. That is legal analysis and it is not ours to do. It is the provision an owner, an officer, or a lawyer would have to read next, so we print it.

4 · Miss. Code § 97-17-97(1) — trespass; remaining in a building after being forbidden · secondhand source

SECONDARY: read on FindLaw ("Current as of January 01, 2025"). The ellipses drop the public-housing-authority clauses in the middle of a single long sentence; the elements quoted are unbroken. Note the element that has to happen first: "after having been forbidden to do so."

5 · Miss. Code § 97-17-93(1)–(2) — entering lands of another without permission; enforcement by citation · secondhand source

SECONDARY: read on FindLaw ("Current as of January 01, 2025"). READ THE SCOPE BEFORE YOU READ THE ALARM: this section is about entering the LANDS of another, and the building section above is § 97-17-97. But subsection (2)(b) is printed here because it is the sentence that decides whether anyone leaves a house — an offence enforced "by issuing a citation" removes nobody. The ellipsis drops the second-offence sentence.

6 · Miss. Code § 99-3-7(1) — when arrests may be made without warrant · secondhand source

SECONDARY: read on FindLaw ("Current as of January 01, 2025"). These are the provisions, in order — the offence, the missing grade, the default penalty, the building-trespass grade, the citation duty, and the arrest power. We have drawn no conclusion from them, and in particular we do not tell you what "an indictable offense committed … in his presence" reaches. That is a question for a Mississippi lawyer and for the officer at the door, with all six in front of him.

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(b) — what the affidavit must contain (HB 1200, 2025)

A CLAIM ABOUT OUR OWN SEARCH, NOT ABOUT THE LAW: on 2026-07-14 we read HB 1200 in full on the Legislature's own server. We looked for any provision telling the law enforcement agency how to establish that the person who signed the affidavit actually owns the building before the citation issues and before the removal that "shall not require a writ" — a deed check, a chancery-clerk lookup, a records search, anything. We found no such provision. Note the third item: the supporting documentation is "any", and the act names no one whose job it is to test it.

2 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(5)(a) and § 2(1)(b) — the deed, and who counts as an owner

And § 2(1)(b) defines the term: '"Owner" means the person listed on the deed in the chancery court of the county in which the premises is located.' So Mississippi knows exactly what would settle the question, and it asks for it in the one place where a judge is already looking — never at the door, and never before the removal that needs no writ.

3 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(5)(c)(ii) — false statements in the complaint

Note when this bites: "If the court determines" — i.e. at a hearing, which only happens if the occupant contests within three days. Where nobody contests, no court determines anything.

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(c) — the citation, and the three-day clock (HB 1200, 2025)

Note a discrepancy printed in the act itself. The operative subsection gives the occupant "three (3) consecutive days" to notify the court, while the citation form the same subsection prescribes says "three (3) consecutive business days". We quote both as printed and resolve neither.

2 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(d) and § 2(4)(a)–(b) — the hearing (HB 1200, 2025)

The ellipsis joins § 2(3)(d) to § 2(4)(b), and the second sentence of § 2(4)(b) — dropped here — lets the court set a SHORTER move-out window than twenty-four hours where health, safety, or a risk of damage justifies it. Note also § 2(4)(a), which measures the same hearing from a different event: "The hearing to determine whether the person is a squatter shall be held no more than seven (7) days from the date on which the citation is issued." The act contains both clocks.

3 · Miss. Code § 11-25-1 — unlawful entry and detainer · secondhand source

SECONDARY: the official Mississippi Code is published by LexisNexis, which blocks automated retrieval; read on FindLaw, "Current as of January 01, 2025". The ellipsis drops the long middle clause listing landlords, vendors, mortgagees and others — the words quoted are the opening and the closing of one sentence. Note the one-year limit on the summary remedy: it is a deadline on the OWNER.

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(4)(a)–(b) — the hearing and the move-out window (HB 1200, 2025)

Read what the act does NOT provide for: any extension. There is no "unless good cause is shown for a delay" in these clocks. Whether they hold in a real justice court with a real docket is a different question, and the act does not answer it.

2 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(5)(d) — attorney's fees to the prevailing party (HB 1200, 2025)

NO DOLLAR FIGURE APPEARS ON THIS PAGE, and that is deliberate. HB 1200 names no filing fee and Mississippi justice- and municipal-court costs are set outside the act; every fee figure on this site appears verbatim in a document we fetched or it does not appear. Read "the prevailing party" in both directions: if the court finds the person in your building is not a squatter, you are the one paying their lawyer. And § 2(5)(c)(ii) adds, for an owner whose statements the court finds were intentionally false, triple the other side's costs and up to six months in jail.

3 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(5)(c)(i) — if the court says they are not a squatter (HB 1200, 2025)

One sentence, and it is the whole risk. A person the court will not call a squatter is a person you must now remove by an ordinary possession lawsuit — the § 11-25-1 route quoted elsewhere on this page — and that is measured in months, not days. The act does not say what happens next; that is the point of this caveat.

1 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(b)–(c) — affidavit, citation, removal without a writ (HB 1200, 2025)

The ellipsis drops the three items the affidavit must list (§ 2(3)(b)(i)–(iii)) and the twenty-four-hour citation sentence, both of which are quoted in full elsewhere on this page. THIS IS THE SENTENCE THAT MATTERS: "No writ of removal shall be required for such removal." Where the occupant says nothing for three days, no judicial officer is named in the path at all.

2 · Real Property Owners Protection Act, § 2(3)(d) and § 2(5)(a), (c)(i) — the contested path (HB 1200, 2025)

The ellipses join § 2(3)(d) to § 2(5)(a) and then to § 2(5)(c)(i); each sentence is unbroken. So the safety valve is a phone call or a filing that any occupant can make, and it is the only thing standing between a sworn affidavit and a removal that needs no writ. That is why the honest verdict here is "depends" and not "yes" — and it is why the fast path is the one that never happens to the person reading this page.

1 · Miss. Code § 15-1-13(1), as set out by the Court of Appeals in Signaigo v. Grinstead, No. 2022-CA-01212-COA (Miss. Ct. App. May 21, 2024), ¶ 10

Quoted as the court printed it, from the Mississippi Court of Appeals' own PDF on courts.ms.gov, read 2026-07-14. What the court reproduced is subsection (1), and that is all we quote: the opinion sets out § 15-1-13(1) at ¶ 10 and does not print the rest of the section, so we do not describe the rest of the section. The final sentence of the subsection — a thirty-one-year cap on the unsoundness-of-mind saving — is omitted from the quote above.

2 · Signaigo v. Grinstead, No. 2022-CA-01212-COA (Miss. Ct. App. May 21, 2024), ¶ 10, quoting Franco v. Ferrill, 342 So. 3d 1176, 1188 (¶ 29) (Miss. Ct. App. 2022)

The same paragraph adds: "The party claiming adverse possession must prove each element by clear and convincing evidence." Read the words rather than the years — the clock does not start because a building sat empty.

3 · Signaigo v. Grinstead, No. 2022-CA-01212-COA (Miss. Ct. App. May 21, 2024), ¶ 15, quoting Blackburn v. Wong, 904 So. 2d 134, 137 (¶ 19) (Miss. 2004)

The Court of Appeals affirmed against possessors who had fenced, mowed and maintained the land for twenty-five years, because they admitted they knew it was not theirs when they started. The same paragraph the elements come from says the claim of ownership "must have existed at the beginning of the statutory period of possession and not possession with the intent to claim as soon as the statutory period passed." We quote the court and add nothing to it.