Free tool · Little Rock
What does a squatter cost you in Arkansas?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Arkansas's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Arkansas estimate
$31,960
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in Arkansas is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Little Rock — $1,540/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in Arkansas
$31,960
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $3,910.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($3,910/mo × 6 mo)
$23,460
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? YES — but through Arkansas's 2025 squatting statute, not the eviction itself. § 5-39-215(g) grants the aggrieved owner a private cause of action against the squatter and entitles the owner to recover 'reasonable attorney's fees.' The possession action itself (§ 18-60-309) awards only rent and liquidated damages, so fee recovery lives in the separate squatting-tort claim.. PRIMARY: quoted verbatim from the enrolled Act 238 of 2025, fetched from the legislature's server on 2026-07-14. Fees run against the squatter in the § 5-39-215(g) action, not automatically in the § 18-60-307 possession case — and collecting any judgment from a squatter is a separate problem the statute does not solve.
Why Arkansas costs what it does
Arkansas does not force a full ownership lawsuit the way Pennsylvania does. Its forcible-entry-and-unlawful-detainer statute — a fast statutory possession action — expressly reaches anyone holding a building without right or claim of title, so a squatter is squarely inside it. If the person inside files nothing within five days (Sundays and legal holidays do not count, but Saturdays do), a judge orders the sheriff to remove them; a one-page written objection buys a hearing first, which can push a contested case out to months.
How you must remove them
summary
“If, within five (5) days, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, following service of this summons, complaint, and notice seeking a writ of possession against the defendants named therein, the defendant or defendants have not filed a written objection to the claim for possession made by the plaintiff in his or her complaint, the clerk of the court, upon order of the court, shall immediately issue a writ of possession directed to the sheriff”
Route is 'summary,' not 'ejectment': unlike Pennsylvania, Arkansas does not close its fast possession track to non-tenants — the forcible-entry-and-unlawful-detainer action (§ 18-60-303(1), § 18-60-304) expressly reaches anyone who holds land 'without right or claim to title,' i.e. a squatter, and § 18-60-307 supplies a five-day writ. Sections are secondary-sourced (current as of March 28, 2024); confirm against the official Arkansas Code if load-bearing.
The statute
Ark. Code § 5-39-215 — 'unlawful squatting,' a distinct crime created by Act 238 of 2025 (HB1049), approved 2025-03-04: a first offense is a Class B misdemeanor, a third offense is a Class D felony, and handing an officer a false document (e.g. a forged lease) is itself a Class D felony.
2026-07-14
“(3)(A) "Unlawful squatting" means entering and residing unlawfully in a premises when the person entering and residing in the premises is not privileged or licensed to do so.”
PRIMARY: fetched as the enrolled Act (3 pp., PDF) from the Arkansas General Assembly's own server on 2026-07-14. § 5-39-215 creates a CRIME and no removal procedure; the removal route is the separate civil possession action at § 18-60-307. Note element (4) of § 5-39-215(b) — the squatting offense requires that 'No pending litigation exists' between owner and occupant, which may sit in tension with filing the possession case first; unlitigated.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $989 · 2 bed $1,147 · 3 bed $1,540 · 4 bed $1,822
Confirmed verbatim against HUD's FY2026 FMR Documentation System, which prints 'FY 2026 FMR $984 $989 $1,147 $1,540 $1,822' (Efficiency/1BR/2BR/3BR/4BR) for this HMFA; all four cited figures match, no change needed. Same values appear in the FY2026_FMR_Schedule.pdf originally cited. An FMR is the 40th-percentile recent-mover rent — a market floor, not an estimate of a renovated flip's rent.
Do you get your legal fees back?
YES — but through Arkansas's 2025 squatting statute, not the eviction itself. § 5-39-215(g) grants the aggrieved owner a private cause of action against the squatter and entitles the owner to recover 'reasonable attorney's fees.' The possession action itself (§ 18-60-309) awards only rent and liquidated damages, so fee recovery lives in the separate squatting-tort claim.
2026-07-14
“A person aggrieved by a violation of this section is granted a private cause of action against the person who violated this section and is entitled to recover damages, including without limitation restitution, and reasonable attorney's fees.”
PRIMARY: quoted verbatim from the enrolled Act 238 of 2025, fetched from the legislature's server on 2026-07-14. Fees run against the squatter in the § 5-39-215(g) action, not automatically in the § 18-60-307 possession case — and collecting any judgment from a squatter is a separate problem the statute does not solve.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
NO — Arkansas has no sheriff-removes-on-affidavit bypass. It does require the owner's sworn affidavit, but the affidavit is filed in court with a complaint, and the writ that sends the sheriff issues 'upon order of the court.' A judge signs; the ownership-proof gap stays open.
“the clerk of the court, upon order of the court, shall immediately issue a writ of possession directed to the sheriff commanding him or her to cause the possession of the property described in the complaint to be delivered to the plaintiff without delay”
The word 'affidavit' in a squatter statute means nothing on its own — here it goes to a court clerk, with a complaint and summons, which is a lawsuit, not the Florida/Texas sheriff bypass. There is no Arkansas provision under which a sheriff removes an occupant on an owner's sworn statement without a court order. Secondary-sourced (current as of March 28, 2024); confirm against the official Arkansas Code if load-bearing.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on Arkansas’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.