Free tool · Miami-Dade
What does a squatter cost you in Florida?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Florida's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Florida estimate
$41,482
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Florida is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Miami-Dade — $3,127/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 Florida
$41,482
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $5,497.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($5,497/mo × 6 mo)
$32,982
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? NO — and the fee-shifting runs against you. Chapter 82 gives you damages and COSTS, not fees. Meanwhile a person wrongfully removed under § 82.036 recovers actual damages, TRIPLE the fair market rent, court costs and attorney fees from you — and a false statement on the form is punishable as perjury.
Why Florida costs what it does
Florida has the strongest sheriff-affidavit statute in the country, and it is the clearest illustration of what these laws actually do. § 82.036 requires the owner to submit a verified complaint with THIRTEEN separate declarations, each individually initialled, plus a government photo ID — and then the sheriff verifies record ownership before acting. The state did not remove the need for a credible, verified, sworn owner's statement. It made one mandatory.
The statute
Fla. Stat. ch. 82 (unlawful detainer); § 82.036 (sheriff affidavit route)
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,995 · 2 bed $2,436 · 3 bed $3,127 · 4 bed $3,613
HUD FY2026 FMR, effective Oct 1 2025
All four figures are the official HUD FY2026 FMR for the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall HMFA (0BR $1,828, 1BR $1,995, 2BR $2,436, 3BR $3,127, 4BR $3,613).
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — and the fee-shifting runs against you
Chapter 82 gives you damages and COSTS, not fees. Meanwhile a person wrongfully removed under § 82.036 recovers actual damages, TRIPLE the fair market rent, court costs and attorney fees from you — and a false statement on the form is punishable as perjury.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES — § 82.036, the strongest in the country
Nine conditions must all be true, including that they are not current or former tenants and that no litigation is pending between you.
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 Florida’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.