Free tool · Boise City
What does a squatter cost you in Idaho?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Idaho's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Idaho estimate
$36,628
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Idaho is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Boise City — $2,318/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 Idaho
$36,628
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,688.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,688/mo × 6 mo)
$28,128
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. Idaho's squatter-removal statutes contain no fee award for a prevailing owner; the only attorney's-fee shift in § 6-310A runs the other way — against the owner, to a person who proves a wrongful removal. And filing the forcible-detainer action against someone who was in fact your tenant or in bad faith exposes the owner to treble damages under § 6-310(5)/§ 6-317.. This fee award is payable BY the owner TO the wrongly-removed occupant. No provision in these sections awards the owner attorney's fees for a successful removal.
Why Idaho costs what it does
Idaho gives a vacant-property owner two ways out. The fast one skips court entirely: you hand the county sheriff a sworn, perjury-backed complaint, and if he is satisfied you are the record owner he serves a notice to immediately vacate and physically puts you back in possession — no judge signs anything. For cases the sheriff route does not cover (a former tenant, a relative, an occupant already in litigation with you), you file a summary court action for possession, and the statute makes the court set trial within 72 hours of filing. If the occupant produces a lease and contests the facts, that dispute goes to a jury, so a contested case runs weeks rather than days.
How you must remove them
summary_plus_affidavit
“the sheriff shall, without delay, serve a notice to immediately vacate on all the unlawful occupants and shall put the owner in possession of the real property”
Idaho offers two tracks: a no-court fast lane where the sheriff removes on the owner's sworn complaint (§ 6-310A), and a summary court forcible-detainer action with trial set within 72 hours of filing (§ 6-310(4)). Hence summary-plus-affidavit.
The statute
Idaho Code § 6-310A — immediate removal of unlawful occupants of a residential dwelling by the sheriff on the owner's verified complaint (added 2025, ch. 222; am. 2026, ch. 82). Related: § 6-310 (forcible-detainer action, 72-hour trial), § 18-7008 (criminal trespass).
“Upon receipt of the complaint, the sheriff shall verify that the person submitting the complaint is the record owner of the real property or the authorized agent of the owner and appears otherwise entitled to relief pursuant to the provisions of this section. If verified, the sheriff shall, without delay, serve a notice to immediately vacate on all the unlawful occupants and shall put the owner in possession of the real property.”
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,381 · 2 bed $1,655 · 3 bed $2,318 · 4 bed $2,772
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO. Idaho's squatter-removal statutes contain no fee award for a prevailing owner; the only attorney's-fee shift in § 6-310A runs the other way — against the owner, to a person who proves a wrongful removal. And filing the forcible-detainer action against someone who was in fact your tenant or in bad faith exposes the owner to treble damages under § 6-310(5)/§ 6-317.
“A person harmed by a wrongful removal under this section may be restored to possession of the real property and may recover actual costs and damages incurred, statutory damages equal to triple the fair market rent of the dwelling, court costs, and reasonable attorney's fees.”
This fee award is payable BY the owner TO the wrongly-removed occupant. No provision in these sections awards the owner attorney's fees for a successful removal.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES. Idaho is a true no-court state: an owner (or authorized agent) submits a completed, verified "Complaint to Remove Persons Unlawfully Occupying Residential Real Property" to the county sheriff, who — if satisfied the affiant is the record owner — serves a notice to immediately vacate and restores possession with no judge, no hearing, and nothing the occupant can sign to stop it. The statute still leaves the ownership-verification gap open: it commands the sheriff to verify the record owner but prescribes no method, and the form's only ownership evidence is a government-issued ID (item 13).
“the sheriff shall, without delay, serve a notice to immediately vacate on all the unlawful occupants and shall put the owner in possession of the real property”
Unlike Georgia, there is no counter-affidavit the occupant can file to halt the sheriff; their only remedy is the after-the-fact wrongful-removal suit in § 6-310A(6).
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 Idaho’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.