Pennsylvania man pays ransom to reclaim house from squatters: 'The city is rewarding criminals'

A Pennsylvania man says he had to pay a squatter $1,200 to leave his house after police told him they couldn't intervene and court staff said a formal eviction could take more than six months.

"It's just unbelievable," Chris Harte said. "The city is rewarding criminals, basically."

Harte first spoke to Fox News in December, just days after his saga began. He was in the process of selling an investment property he'd renovated in northwest Philadelphia.

But on Dec. 8, Harte's real estate agent got a call from someone who lived near the house. She said she heard a commotion the night before, then saw people moving into the house and taking down the "for sale" sign.

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Chris Harte, 35, bought an investment property last year in northwest Philadelphia. After substantial renovations, he listed it for sale, only to have squatters break in. (Photos courtesy Chris Harte)

Harte was about to pick up his kids from school, then had to pick his wife up at the airport, so he called the police. He says officers went to the house and called him back, saying there were people out front attempting to put new locks on the door.

Harte said the officer told him the people at the house claimed to be renting it, so there was nothing they could do.

The next morning, Harte, his real estate agent and a locksmith met police at the house with similarly frustrating results.

"I had all my paperwork, purchase and sale agreement, homeowner's insurance, the deed to the home, everything on me. They said it didn't matter," Harte said.

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The suspects had squatters' rights as soon as they moved into the house, and police suggested he file a landlord-tenant complaint, Harte said. Court staff told him he'd have to pay more than $300 to file for an eviction to remove the alleged squatters, which could then take up to a year.

"Squatters' rights … it's like an oxymoron," he said. "If I walk into a store and steal a bottle of water, they have me on camera, they're going to take me to jail. But somebody can break into my house, change the locks and now they have rights."

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Asked about the incident, Philadelphia Police only told Fox News that the property owner was "advised of a tenant and landlord issue" and no arrests were made.

"The police told us that they get three to four calls a day similar to this," real estate agent Bob Cervone told Fox News. "I certainly had heard of this happening from other agents, from landlords. But it was my first experience with it."

A few days later, Harte said, the squatters reached out to Cervone to arrange a meeting. They said they had found somewhere else to live and would leave Harte's house if he gave them $2,000. He said that was too much but ultimately paid them $1,200 after walking through the house.

"The house was super dirty, trash everywhere," he said. "Luckily, there was no damage."

The squatters left. He immediately changed the locks and hired a cleaner. All told, he estimates the incident cost him $2,000 and endless stress over the holidays until the sale finally closed last week.

"I had no peace of mind after that," he said. "I had to keep driving there like every other day just to make sure that nobody's breaking in."

Philadelphia residents have struggled to reclaim their property from squatters for years. City leaders have passed at least two ordinances addressing the problem in the last several years, but frustrated homeowners say they haven't made a difference. (Joseph Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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People across the country have been embroiled in costly legal battles trying to reclaim their property from squatters in recent years, and Philadelphia has been particularly hard hit.

In 2018, the city passed an ordinance meant to make it easier to remove alleged squatters. But just months later, council member Cherelle L. Parker — now the mayor — put forth a replacement bill that "basically gutted all the protections to homeowners," former council member David Oh told Fox News last year.

Mayor Parker recently delivered her inaugural address and announced a slate of initiatives for her first 100 days in office, including increased policing and bringing a "sense of lawfulness" back to the city. Her office did not respond to questions from Fox News about whether combating squatting would be part of that plan.

"It's absolutely preposterous," Harte said of the political climate in Philadelphia. "They're not helping investors like myself who want to improve the city, want to buy these homes and fix them up and, you know, make the city a safer, better looking area."

While Harte doesn't identify strongly with either side of the political aisle, he said Philadelphia is a "Democratic-run city" and he sees a "pretty obvious" correlation between such leadership and crime in cities across the nation.

"We need different politicians," he said. "I think their policies are terrible, and they're ruining many cities all throughout America. And Philadelphia is one of them."

To hear more from Harte, click here.

Hannah Ray Lambert is an associate producer/writer with Fox News Digital Originals.