A squatter who established their presence on a fire victim’s vacant lot in LA employed a crafty DMV tactic to assert a claim on the land, according to a construction boss’s account.

The vagrant allegedly commandeered a property in Altadena, which was ravaged by the devastating Eaton fire in January this year.

Luke Melchior, the proprietor of Melchior Construction, states that he and his team were operating in a formerly luxurious area when residents requested their assistance.

“They informed us that some squatters had moved down the street,” Melchior shared with the Daily Mail. “They wanted us to tell the squatters, ‘Hey, we’re preparing to demolish this property. You need to vacate it.’ But they refused to leave.”

He says police were called to the property, but couldn’t force the trespasser off the land plot because they had ‘registered their driver’s license to that address’. The owners will now have to seek a formal eviction in court. 

Daily Mail is working to verify Melchior’s claim. The California Department of Motor Vehicles does not require license holders to submit proof of address when updating their ID, an agent confirmed to Daily Mail.

Those seeking a compliant or ‘REAL ID’ are required to provide at least two documents that display the new address such as a lease agreement, utility bill, paystub or banking statement.

The construction boss admits the case in Altadena is the first he has seen of squatters pitching camp on properties destroyed by the deadly LA fires, but is still urging all homeowners in the area to take steps to protect themselves and their land.

Melchoir has encouraged property owners to post no trespassing signs on the destroyed lots and formally register their address as a no trespassing zone.

‘You basically want to establish some type of record that nobody’s supposed to go on your property, and that’s how you can kind of fend against [squatters] falsifying a lease or some other documentation that shows that that’s their residence,’ he said.

The construction boss admitted that although squatters are not likely to have any legitimate claim stake in the lots long-term, trespassing does cause a serious ‘hassle’.

‘If they falsify a lease or a bill, or any of that – as long as they’ve done that, then the police don’t have any ability to enforce it and get them off of there,’ Melchoir claimed.

He alleged that owners will have to go through a ‘formal eviction process’ with the courts to have the removed squatters from the premises, which he warns ‘could take a long time’.

‘They’re probably not going to be able to take over the property permanently, but they can make it a huge hassle, delay building, delay cleanup. There’s a whole bunch of issues that come with that,’ he added.

Daily Mail has approached police and the California Attorney General’s Office for more information about the alleged squatting case in Altadena, as well as any other possible instances reported across the state.

California has notoriously lenient residency laws, with guests being eligible to become tenants after staying at a residence for 14 days in a six month period or seven nights consecutively, according to Proper Insurance.

However, that does not necessarily mean that an individual has the right to commandeer a property from its legal owner. 

State law requires trespassers seeking to possess ownership of stolen land to meet very specific requirements.

California’s adverse possession law requires the trespasser to physically occupy the property and use it as if they were the owner – and must have done so without permission from the actual owner, according to lawyers at Martinez Law Center.

The trespasser must be ‘transparent’ in their use of the property, making it visible to both the legal owner and others.

They must be the only person using and controlling the property, and continuously occupy the land for a period of at least five years. 

The law firm notes the squatter’s possession of the property ‘must be hostile’ and ‘against the true owner’s rights and without their permission’.

The trespasser must also pay property taxes on the land during the duration of their statutory occupancy period.