Free tool · Jackson
What does a squatter cost you in Mississippi?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Mississippi's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Mississippi estimate
$31,984
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Mississippi is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Jackson — $1,544/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 Mississippi
$31,984
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $3,914.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($3,914/mo × 6 mo)
$23,484
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 — to the prevailing party, and it cuts both ways. Read 'prevailing party' in both directions: fees are awarded only at the hearing, which only happens if the occupant contests within three days, and if the court finds the person is not a squatter, the owner pays their lawyer. § 2(5)(c)(ii) adds that an owner whose statements the court finds intentionally false owes triple the other side's costs and may serve up to six months in the county jail.
Why Mississippi costs what it does
Mississippi's 2025 squatter law lets an owner file a sworn affidavit with the local law enforcement agency rather than sue. A citation issues within 24 hours, and if the occupant lets three days pass without notifying the court, they are removed with no writ and no judge. But a single notice to the municipal or justice court closes that fast lane, and a judge then hears the case within seven days. A squatter holding a forged lease will make that call, so for the customer this tool is written for, the real route is the contested hearing. If the court finds the person is not a squatter, they stay in the building and the owner starts over with an ordinary possession suit under § 11-25-1, which runs in months.
How you must remove them
summary_plus_affidavit
The affidavit-to-law-enforcement track sits alongside the ordinary summary remedy, Miss. Code § 11-25-1 (unlawful entry and detainer), which is the fallback when the squatter act does not fit.
The statute
Miss. Code § 11-25-1 (unlawful entry and detainer); HB 1200 (2025), "Real Property Owners Protection Act" (sworn affidavit to law enforcement, removal without a writ)
“A squatter shall not have the same rights or eviction process as a tenant as defined in Section 89-7-1 et seq. and Section 89-8-1 et seq.”
The standalone code sections (§§ 11-25-1, 97-17-93/97, 99-3-7, 99-19-31) are secondary-sourced (current as of January 01, 2025); confirm against the official Mississippi Code if load-bearing. § 89-8-3 was amended twice in 2025 (HB 1200 Ch. 474 and SB 2328 Ch. 460).
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,097 · 2 bed $1,288 · 3 bed $1,544 · 4 bed $1,705
FY2026 (eff. 2025-10-01)
Verified verbatim against HUD's FY2026 FMR Schedule PDF (row: '+Jackson, MS HMFA ... 1091 1097 1288 1544 1705 Copiah, Hinds, Madison, Rankin'). The 0-bedroom figure is $1,091. The area is the four-county metro (Copiah, Hinds, Madison, Rankin), not the city alone; an FMR is the 40th-percentile recent-mover rent, so treat it as a floor for a renovated flip, not an estimate.
Do you get your legal fees back?
YES — to the prevailing party, and it cuts both ways
“The court shall award attorney's fees and an amount equal to the costs incurred as a result of the hearing to the prevailing party, in addition to any other monies the court finds necessary.”
Read 'prevailing party' in both directions: fees are awarded only at the hearing, which only happens if the occupant contests within three days, and if the court finds the person is not a squatter, the owner pays their lawyer. § 2(5)(c)(ii) adds that an owner whose statements the court finds intentionally false owes triple the other side's costs and may serve up to six months in the county jail.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES, unless contested — affidavit to law enforcement, removal with no writ
“No writ of removal shall be required for such removal.”
The affidavit goes to the law enforcement agency, not a court, and where the occupant stays silent for three days no judicial officer is named in the path at all. But one notice to the municipal or justice court sends it to a judge within seven days. And the act tells law enforcement to check nothing but the owner's sworn word and 'any documentation supporting the affidavit' before the removal — it names a certified deed as proof of ownership only in the courtroom, at § 2(5)(a). That gap is the product thesis.
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 Mississippi’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.