Property Rights by State: Eminent Domain, Squatters & Rent Control

Owning property in America means holding three things that can each be taken from you in a different way: the title, which someone can occupy their way toward; the use, which a government can seize outright; and the income, which a state can cap. Every state limits all three to some degree. They disagree sharply about how much.

This guide covers those three pressures on ownership — adverse possession and squatter removal, eminent domain, and rent control — and where owners are best and worst protected.

The short version

• All 50 states have adverse-possession laws, but actually losing title this way is rare and hard.
• The real squatter problem is removal speed, not loss of title — and a wave of 2024–25 reforms changed it.
• The 2005 Kelo decision let a city seize homes for a private developer; 47 states responded by strengthening protections.
• Only 8 states plus DC allow rent control. More than 30 actively prohibit it.
• Post-Kelo reforms vary enormously in quality — broad “blight” definitions are the usual loophole.

Adverse possession

A doctrine letting someone gain legal title to land they have openly, continuously and exclusively occupied without permission for a statutory period.

Eminent domain

The government's power to take private property for public use on payment of just compensation.

Economic-development taking

Seizing property not for a public project but to transfer it to another private party expected to produce jobs or tax revenue.

Blight designation

An official finding that an area is deteriorated, often used to justify a taking. Broad definitions are the main post-Kelo loophole.

Preemption

A state law barring municipalities from regulating something — the mechanism by which 30+ states prohibit local rent control.

Rent stabilization

A cap on how fast rent may rise annually, as opposed to a freeze. What nearly all modern "rent control" actually is.

Squatters: two different problems wearing one name

"Squatters' rights" is shorthand for adverse possession, a centuries-old doctrine allowing someone to gain legal title to land they have occupied long enough under strict conditions. Public discussion tangles together two things that are almost entirely separate:

• The long game — adverse possession. After many years, a squatter might claim ownership. This is genuinely rare, because every element must hold continuously for the whole period.
• The short game — removal. Until removed, a squatter often cannot simply be ejected, because the law may treat them as a tenant entitled to formal process. This is what actually frustrates owners, and it has nothing to do with title.

Almost every alarming story about squatters is about the second problem being reported as though it were the first.

What adverse possession actually requires

For a squatter to claim title, occupation generally must be hostile (without permission), actual (physically using the property), open and notorious (not concealed), exclusive (not shared with the owner or the public), and continuous for the full statutory period.

That period runs from about 5 years — usually where the occupant also paid property taxes or held "color of title" — to 20 or more. Texas generally requires 10 years, Tennessee 7. Because every element must hold for the entire duration, successful claims are uncommon.

Where removal is fastest

A wave of reform has split the country. These states now make removal quickest, criminalising squatting or providing a sheriff-assisted process:

Florida set the template with its 2024 legislation, which made squatting a crime and allowed sheriffs to remove occupants on an owner's sworn complaint rather than forcing a months-long civil action. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Texas followed with expedited procedures of their own.

Owners of vacant or rental property can cut the risk substantially: inspect regularly, secure and document vacant property, and act immediately — most fast-removal procedures depend on acting before an occupant establishes anything resembling residency.

Eminent domain: what "public use" was allowed to mean

The Fifth Amendment permits government to take private property for "public use" on payment of "just compensation." Traditionally that meant roads, schools, and utilities. The entire modern controversy is over economic-development takings — seizing property not for a public project but to hand to another private party promising jobs or tax revenue.

In Kelo v. City of New London (2005), the Supreme Court held 5–4 that a city could condemn Susette Kelo's home and transfer it to a private developer as part of a redevelopment plan, and that this counted as public use.

The decision was unpopular across the political spectrum, and it failed on its own terms: the New London site was never developed and sat as an empty lot for years. Its lasting effect was the backlash. 47 states strengthened protections by statute or state-court ruling, and 12 amended their constitutions to bar takings for private gain — one of the fastest and most bipartisan state-level responses to a Supreme Court decision in modern history.

Reform on paper versus reform in fact

The Institute for Justice, which argued Kelo, grades states on how effectively they actually limit eminent-domain abuse, and the spread is wide. Florida earns an A, with statutes that tightly restrict transferring condemned property to private parties and bar blight from being used as a pretext. Connecticut, where Kelo happened, manages a D. New York receives an F, having never meaningfully reformed.

The fight has restarted

Twenty years after Kelo, eminent domain is back near the top of state legislative agendas, but the projects driving it have changed. The 2025–26 disputes center on private infrastructure: CO₂ pipelines crossing Midwestern farmland, energy transmission corridors increasingly built to power data centers, and renewable and utility projects developed by private companies.

These test exactly the question Kelo raised — when a private company is the direct beneficiary, is it still public use? The states with the strongest post-Kelo reforms are the ones positioned to answer no.

Rent control: rarer than almost anyone assumes

Eight states plus Washington, D.C. allow rent control or rent stabilization somewhere within their borders:

They are not all the same thing. Statewide caps exist in California (5% plus CPI, capped at 10%), Oregon (7% plus CPI), and Washington (enacted 2025), limiting annual increases across the whole state for older buildings. Local-only regimes in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota let individual cities adopt rent control without applying it statewide.

Nearly all of these are technically rent stabilization: they do not freeze rent, they cap how fast it may rise, usually exempting newer construction.

Whether rent control works is among the most studied and most contested questions in economics. The case for it is that it protects existing tenants from sudden increases and displacement in expensive markets, which it demonstrably does. The case against it is that a large body of research finds it reduces the supply and quality of rental housing over time, as owners convert units, defer maintenance, or build less — sometimes raising rents for everyone not covered.

Our index treats it as a reduction in property rights because it limits what an owner may charge for their own asset. That is a description of the mechanism, not a verdict on the trade-off, and you can re-weight it yourself.

How states rank on property rights

All three areas feed the property-rights score, alongside land-use and zoning freedom:

1. 1. New Hampshire —
   9.5/10 (A+).
2. 2. North Dakota —
   9.5/10 (A+).
3. 3. South Dakota —
   9.5/10 (A+).
4. 4. Florida —
   9.5/10 (A+).
5. 5. Vermont —
   9.5/10 (A+).
6. 6. Michigan —
   9.5/10 (A+).
7. 7. New Mexico —
   9.5/10 (A+).
8. 8. Utah —
   8.0/10 (A-).
9. 9. Arizona —
   8.0/10 (A-).
10. 10. Indiana —
    8.0/10 (A-).

See all 50 states ranked on Property Rights

See all 50 states ranked on property rights

Eminent domain, land use, and ownership protections — the full ranking with a color-coded map.