Free tool · Charleston
What does a squatter cost you in West Virginia?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is West Virginia's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
West Virginia estimate
$30,670
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Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes.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 West Virginia is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Charleston — $1,325/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 West Virginia
$30,670
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $3,695.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($3,695/mo × 6 mo)
$22,170
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. The Stop Squatters Act gives the owner no route to recover attorney fees from a squatter, and it points the fee-shifting the other way: a person wrongfully removed recovers restoration of possession, actual costs, damages and attorney fees against the owner (§ 55-3C-5(b)), and a bad-faith complaint exposes the owner to false-swearing prosecution and to indemnifying the agency (§ 55-3C-5(a)). Same shape as Florida — the statute's fee exposure runs against the owner, not for them.
Why West Virginia costs what it does
West Virginia took the judge out. Since the Stop Squatters Act, the owner hands a verified complaint to a law-enforcement officer; the officer does preliminary fact-finding, and if he finds probable cause he serves a notice to vacate immediately and puts the owner back in possession — no court, no writ. West Virginia is unusual in ordering the officer to actually investigate rather than just "verify the record owner," but every item it tells him to check sits on the occupant's side of the door, and the only thing behind the owner's half is a sworn signature backed by a false-swearing charge. The verification gap the product exists for is not closed — it is handed to a patrol officer at the door.
How you must remove them
summary_plus_affidavit
“the property owner or authorized agent shall submit a completed and verified complaint to a law-enforcement officer ... If the preliminary fact-finding indicates probable cause that the conditions outlined in subsection (a) of this section are met, then the law-enforcement agency shall serve a notice to immediately vacate upon the unlawful occupants and put the owner in possession of the real property.”
West Virginia's Stop Squatters Act declares a squatter is not a tenant and forbids a court from requiring an eviction to remove one (§ 55-3C-2(c)), so the operative removal is the affidavit-to-officer bypass, not a summary eviction. Eight conditions in § 55-3C-3(a) gate it; a person who was ever a lawful tenant (condition 6) is pushed to the tenant summary track (§ 55-3A-1) before a magistrate.
The statute
W. Va. Code ch. 55, art. 3C (Stop Squatters Act) — § 55-3C-2 (squatter is not a tenant; criminal trespass); § 55-3C-3 (removal on verified complaint to law enforcement)
§ 55-3C-2 (defining squatters as non-tenants, added by 2024 HB 4940) and the § 55-3C-3 law-enforcement removal procedure are attributed to the 2025 session (HB 2434); the code server prints a bill-history line for § 55-3C-2 but not for § 55-3C-3. Confirm against the enrolled Act.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $829 · 2 bed $1,036 · 3 bed $1,325 · 4 bed $1,372
The Charleston, WV HUD Metro FMR Area figures are studio $714, 1BR $829, 2BR $1036, 3BR $1325, 4BR $1372 — a slight uniform decline from the FY2025 Charleston figures (1BR $856, 2BR $1054, 3BR $1356, 4BR $1397). Figures are from a HUD FMR republication; confirm against HUD's FY2026 schedule if load-bearing.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — and the fee-shifting runs against you
2026-07-14
“A civil cause of action for wrongful removal may be brought by a person who has been removed from a property pursuant to this article, with remedies including restoration of possession, actual costs, damages, and attorney fees.”
The Stop Squatters Act gives the owner no route to recover attorney fees from a squatter, and it points the fee-shifting the other way: a person wrongfully removed recovers restoration of possession, actual costs, damages and attorney fees against the owner (§ 55-3C-5(b)), and a bad-faith complaint exposes the owner to false-swearing prosecution and to indemnifying the agency (§ 55-3C-5(a)). Same shape as Florida — the statute's fee exposure runs against the owner, not for them.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES — W. Va. Code § 55-3C-3, officer removes on a verified complaint, no judge
“If the preliminary fact-finding indicates probable cause that the conditions outlined in subsection (a) of this section are met, then the law-enforcement agency shall serve a notice to immediately vacate upon the unlawful occupants and put the owner in possession of the real property.”
Eight conditions in § 55-3C-3(a) must all hold — including that the occupant is not a current or former lawful tenant and that no litigation is pending between the parties. Unlike Florida and Texas, the officer is ordered to do 'preliminary fact-finding' (review any alleged lease, interview individuals), but the statute gives him no method to establish that the person who signed the complaint owns the building. Get it wrong and § 55-3C-5 exposes you to false-swearing prosecution, indemnity of the agency, and a wrongful-removal suit for possession, damages and attorney 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 West Virginia’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.