Free tool · Columbus
What does a squatter cost you in Ohio?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Ohio's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Ohio estimate
$33,010
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Ohio is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Columbus — $1,715/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 Ohio
$33,010
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,085.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,085/mo × 6 mo)
$24,510
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 if your property is in an LLC, you are forced to hire a lawyer anyway. R.C. Ch. 1923 contains no fee-shifting provision, so eviction costs are not recoverable. Separately, an entity-owned property cannot be filed pro se: an LLC or corporation must appear through counsel, a mandatory and unrecoverable attorney bill. The quoted rule is Cleveland's (Cuyahoga County); a Columbus property files in Franklin County, but the entity-must-have-counsel principle is Ohio-wide.
Why Ohio costs what it does
Ohio's fast eviction statute (forcible entry and detainer, R.C. Chapter 1923) expressly reaches a squatter — someone occupying "without color of title" — so no tenancy is required to use it. That makes Ohio one of the cheaper and quicker states at the courthouse. But the real cost is somewhere most owners never look: if your property is held in an LLC, an Ohio court will not let you file the eviction yourself — the entity must appear through a lawyer.
“When the defendant is an occupier of lands or tenements, without color of title, and the complainant has the right of possession to them.”
Ohio's forcible entry and detainer chapter (R.C. Ch. 1923) is a summary proceeding, and (A)(5) reaches an occupier without color of title — no tenancy required. Quote confirmed verbatim at subsection (A)(5).
The statute
ORC Ch. 1923 (forcible entry and detainer), § 1923.02(A)(5)
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,194 · 2 bed $1,430 · 3 bed $1,715 · 4 bed $1,927
FY2026 (schedule dated 2025-08-26)
Verified verbatim against the HUD schedule PDF. The row 'Columbus, OH HMFA' reads Efficiency 1111 / 1BR 1194 / 2BR 1430 / 3BR 1715 / 4BR 1927, covering Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Morrow and neighboring counties. All four bedroom figures match the entry exactly.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — and if your property is in an LLC, you are forced to hire a lawyer anyway
“Any business entity that appears before the Court must be represented by counsel.”
R.C. Ch. 1923 contains no fee-shifting provision, so eviction costs are not recoverable. Separately, an entity-owned property cannot be filed pro se: an LLC or corporation must appear through counsel, a mandatory and unrecoverable attorney bill. The quoted rule is Cleveland's (Cuyahoga County); a Columbus property files in Franklin County, but the entity-must-have-counsel principle is Ohio-wide.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
No. SB 5 would create one — it has sat in Senate Judiciary since 2025 with no stage completed
If it passes, the sheriff would remove on the owner's written complaint and this page changes materially — but SB 5 has completed no stage, and its proposed § 1923.16 orders the sheriff to verify the complainant is the record owner while giving him no method to do so.
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 Ohio’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.