Mississippi's squatter-removal law is in force, and nobody knows where to file
Mississippi's squatter-removal law is in force, and nobody knows where to file
2026-09-15 · Mississippi · Compliance
Mississippi's Real Property Owners Protection Act has been in force since July 1, 2025, giving an owner a summary route to remove an unauthorised occupant without a full eviction. Eighteen months in, the Attorney General has been asked who an owner is supposed to file with, and declined to answer.1
The law
House Bill 1200 became Chapter 474, Laws of 2025, effective July 1, 2025, creating a new Chapter 10 in Title 89 of the Mississippi Code. It defines squatting, creates a summary removal process with a statutory summons form and a warrant of removal, and penalises false squatting complaints. It also amended §§ 89-8-3 and 89-8-7 of the landlord-tenant law, §§ 95-5-25 and 95-5-29, and § 97-17-103.
The process begins with the owner filing a sworn affidavit. Section 89-10-3(3)(b) says it goes “with the law enforcement agency of the municipality, county or political subdivision.”
The gap
On January 12, 2026 the Attorney General answered a request from Constable Alan Weatherford of Harrison County. Landlords were being routed to him. The opinion declines to say whether a constable is a “law enforcement agency” for this purpose: the Act does not define the term, and under § 19-19-5(2)(a) an untrained constable may not exercise law-enforcement functions at all, so the answer turns on each constable's qualifications — a fact question outside the scope of an official opinion.2
Why a squatter statute matters to an association
Three situations put a community association in contact with this law, and none of them is the stereotype.
The vacant unit in a coastal condominium. Seasonal and investor-owned units sit empty for long stretches. An association is usually the first to know when one is occupied and the owner is not reachable — and the association is not the owner, so it cannot file the affidavit. It can notify the owner, and it should document what it observed and when.
The unit in foreclosure or probate. Where title is in transition, the person with standing to invoke the Act may be unclear for months. The association's assessment obligation continues regardless.
Common areas. The Act is about removing an occupant from a dwelling. Occupation of association-owned common property — a clubhouse, a storage area, an unoccupied amenity building — is a different problem, and the association is the owner there.
The practical effect of the AG's non-answer
The opinion leaves owners in coastal Mississippi without a clean answer on where to file. The requesting official was a Harrison County constable — the heart of the condominium coast — which is itself a signal about where the volume is.
The workable reading is that the affidavit belongs with a municipal police department or the sheriff's office, which are unambiguously law enforcement agencies. Filing with a constable may or may not satisfy the statute depending on that constable's training. An owner who wants the process to work should file where the answer is not in doubt.
One more thing the Legislature tried and abandoned
SB 2721 in the 2026 session would have amended § 89-10-5 to delete a squatters provision from the Act. It died in committee on February 3, 2026, so the statute stands as enacted.3
What to watch next
Two things. First, whether the 2027 session defines “law enforcement agency” in § 89-10-3 — a one-sentence amendment that would resolve the AG's fact question. Second, whether any Mississippi appellate court construes the Act; no reported decision has yet. Until one does, the statutory text and this opinion are the whole of the guidance.
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