Free tool · Nashville
What does a squatter cost you in Tennessee?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Tennessee's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Tennessee estimate
$35,986
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 Tennessee is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Nashville — $2,211/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 Tennessee
$35,986
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,581.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,581/mo × 6 mo)
$27,486
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. Confirmed against the primary statute. The removal statute awards the owner nothing for fees; the only fee-shift in § 29-18-135 runs the other way — a person wrongfully removed recovers actual damages, TRIPLE the fair market rent of the dwelling, court costs and reasonable attorney fees from the owner. Same shape as Florida § 82.036 and Texas Ch. 24B.
Why Tennessee costs what it does
Since July 2024 Tennessee has both a fast eviction track and a true sheriff-removes-on-affidavit statute. An owner hands the county sheriff a sworn complaint on the statute's own form; if the sheriff verifies the owner is the record owner, he serves a notice to vacate and puts the owner back in possession with no judge and no hearing. There is no counter-affidavit an occupant can file to stop it — unlike Georgia, every check runs afterward, in a lawsuit against the owner. The state did not remove the need for a verified, sworn owner's statement; it wrote one into law and made it the price of entry.
How you must remove them
summary_plus_affidavit
“(e)(1) 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 under 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.”
Confirmed against the primary source: since 2024-07-01 § 29-18-135 lets the county sheriff remove an unlawful occupant on the owner's verified complaint with no judge and no hearing. Where the fast route's eight conditions are not met, the ordinary case is a forcible-entry-and-detainer tried before a general sessions judge (§ 29-18-107). Statute verified via the TN Secretary of State's own PDF of Public Chapter 1009.
The statute
Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-18-135 (sheriff-removal on verified complaint); § 29-18-107 (general sessions FED otherwise)
§ 29-18-135 is quoted from Public Chapter 1009 on the TN Secretary of State's server (a scan reconciled against the digital text of Amendment No. 1 to HB1259). The (c) list of eight conditions must all be met for the fast route; § 29-18-135(i) provides that where it conflicts with the landlord-tenant act, this section controls.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,578 · 2 bed $1,730 · 3 bed $2,211 · 4 bed $2,696
FY2026 (eff. 2025-10-01)
The HUD FY2026 schedule row is: Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN HM 1507 1578 1730 2211 2696 — i.e. 0BR $1507, 1BR $1578, 2BR $1730, 3BR $2211, 4BR $2696. These FY2026 numbers came in below FY2025 (1BR $1650, 2BR $1827, 3BR $2308, 4BR $2840) — an across-the-board decrease, unusual but correct. Metro is the multi-county Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin HUD Metro FMR Area (Davidson, Rutherford, Williamson, Cheatham, Dickson, Robertson, Cannon, etc.), not the city alone.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — and the fee-shifting runs against you
“(2) 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 fees.”
Confirmed against the primary statute. The removal statute awards the owner nothing for fees; the only fee-shift in § 29-18-135 runs the other way — a person wrongfully removed recovers actual damages, TRIPLE the fair market rent of the dwelling, court costs and reasonable attorney fees from the owner. Same shape as Florida § 82.036 and Texas Ch. 24B.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES — § 29-18-135, and there is no counter-affidavit
“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.”
Confirmed primary. The sheriff verifies the complainant is the record owner and then acts without delay — but the only ownership proof the statute's printed form (item 13) requires is a copy of a government-issued photo ID, which establishes identity, not title. That is the gap. Unlike Georgia there is NO counter-affidavit; the occupant's sole remedy is the after-the-fact wrongful-removal suit in (g). Get it wrong and the owner pays triple fair market rent plus fees.
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 Tennessee’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.