Free tool · Omaha
What does a squatter cost you in Nebraska?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Nebraska's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Nebraska estimate
$33,598
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Nebraska is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Omaha — $1,813/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 Nebraska
$33,598
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,183.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,183/mo × 6 mo)
$25,098
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 — the judgment runs for restitution of the premises and costs of suit only; you eat your own attorney's fees. The forcible entry and detainer article awards COSTS, not attorney's fees — the word "attorney" appears nowhere in § 25-21,226. Nebraska follows the American rule, so absent a contract or a fee-shifting statute you do not recover counsel, and you have no contract with a squatter. (§ 76-1430's three-months-rent-plus-fee remedy runs the other way: it is tenant-scoped, for a landlord's unlawful lockout.)
Why Nebraska costs what it does
Nebraska routes a squatter through its fast possession track — forcible entry and detainer — and that track expressly names an occupier with no color of title, so you do not have to prove a tenancy first. After a three-day written notice you file in county court, and the statute sets the possession trial for ten to fourteen days after the summons issues. A judge signs the judgment and a sheriff, not you, carries out the removal. The catch: if the intruder hands the officer a lease, the case can turn into a dispute over title that this quick possession court cannot decide, which can push you into a slower action.
How you must remove them
summary
“In all cases when the defendant is a settler or occupier of lands or tenements, without color of title, and to which the complainant has the right of possession.”
The statute
Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 25-21,219 to 25-21,235 (forcible entry and detainer); § 25-21,220(5) reaches an occupier without color of title; trial set 10–14 days after summons (§ 25-21,223)
“Trial of the action for possession shall be held not less than ten nor more than fourteen days after the date of issuance of the summons.”
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,148 · 2 bed $1,368 · 3 bed $1,813 · 4 bed $2,046
FY2026, effective 2025-10-01
Verified verbatim against the FY2026 schedule PDF: the Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA HMFA row reads 1090 / 1148 / 1368 / 1813 / 2046 (Eff/1/2/3/4). The HMFA spans the Nebraska counties (Cass, Douglas, Sarpy, Washington) and the Iowa counties (Harrison, Mills, Pottawattamie), so the same figures apply across the NE and IA portions of the metro.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — the judgment runs for restitution of the premises and costs of suit only; you eat your own attorney's fees
“If the court shall find that the complaint is true, judgment shall be entered against the defendant and in favor of the plaintiff for restitution of the premises and costs of suit.”
The forcible entry and detainer article awards COSTS, not attorney's fees — the word "attorney" appears nowhere in § 25-21,226. Nebraska follows the American rule, so absent a contract or a fee-shifting statute you do not recover counsel, and you have no contract with a squatter. (§ 76-1430's three-months-rent-plus-fee remedy runs the other way: it is tenant-scoped, for a landlord's unlawful lockout.)
Is there a fast sheriff route?
No. Nebraska has no sheriff-removes-on-affidavit route — possession is restored by court judgment and executed by an officer under a writ. LB443 (109th Leg.) would have created a squatter offense but was indefinitely postponed 2026-04-17, and even it was a citation bill, not a sheriff-on-affidavit statute.
Note the number: the bill in circulation as "LB 433" is a State Personnel System / retirement bill. The squatter bill is LB443 (von Gillern), indefinitely postponed 2026-04-17 without leaving the Judiciary Committee.
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 Nebraska’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.