Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

This only happens about a thousand times a day. People get foreclosed on, their houses are auctioned off, and the buyer must sue to evict the former homeowner -- and deal with other issues, such as occupants who have nothing to lose by trashing the place and stealing the copper piping, etc. unless they are bribed with "key money" to leave peaceably. Sometimes the occupants are, indeed, squatters. Usually the auctions are conducted not by "the government" but by banks; and by estate attorneys through the probate court. I have personally purchased real estate at an estate auction only to have the property condemned by the health and building departments shortly thereafter. You haven't lived until you've tried to remediate health and safety violations -- and had to deal with building inspectors and their pals, the bagmen, I mean "permit consultants." Hang out in the probate department of your local courthouse and you'll see some live real estate auctions conducted by a judge, you'll have plenty of people to talk to. I just saw an auction notice for an occupied house in Victorville for this weekend, 6/19, starting bid $49,000 for a property valued at maybe $110,000 -- and the buyer has to evict the poor bastards.

It sounds like a boring movie to me.

"Squatter" is kind of a slang term without a specific legal meaning, but most lawyers and real-estate professionals would consider the word to refer to an occupant whose original entry into the property was trespassory, rather than a former owner or tenant whose right of possession has been lost. However, as an imprecise term it could mean either. "Squatters' rights" is a related slang term that usually refers to adverse possession -- the legal principle that an occupant of land whose possession is adverse (hostile, without permission) and continuous for a sufficient period cannot be removed by the owner and can claim ownership by bringing a quiet title action.

In California, the period of adverse possession is five years, and there is an additional requirment that the person(s) adversely in possession must pay all the property taxes during those five years. The tax payment requirement saves a lot of absentee owners from loss of ownership to squatters.

With repect to a government auction, I thought first of a tax sale rather than a court-conducted foreclosure, partition or estate sale. There is also the trustee's sale, which is decidedly non-governmental and the more common means of carrying out a foreclosure. Each of these types of sales would have its own set of rules as to what prior liens are wiped out and which might survive, and thus as to the quality of title the buyer at the sale will receive.

Various categories of former occupants have different rights. Trespassers have the least right to occupy property, and often can be removed by the police -- but if they have met the requirements for adverse possession, it's another matter entirely. Former tenants and former owners often must be removed by the unlawful detainer process if they are uncooperative. There is a smattering of new state and federal law extending occupants' rights following a foreclosure. Lodgers and guests of former owners and tenants fall under separate rules.

Thus, whether the squatters found in the house your guy buys have any rights, and how they can be removed, is not a simple question. You can probably tweak the facts of your script to make the action legally correct. Finally, note that where the action takes place will affect the applicable law. My answer is based on non rent-controlled areas of California.