HB225 establishes a working group within the Hawaii Department of the Attorney General to study squatting in the state and recommend policy and legislative responses. The bill frames squatting as a legally complex problem involving vacant or abandoned properties, situations where owners cannot be contacted, foreclosure-related occupancy, and disputes where occupants claim tenant rights while owners claim trespass. The working group is tasked with defining squatting, examining how it occurs, and identifying ways to address and prevent it more effectively.
The group must also analyze related legal issues, including trespass, adverse possession, eviction, loitering, and termination of tenancy, and consider community impacts and enforcement options through the courts, law enforcement, and community action. It is required to include a broad mix of state and county officials, legislators, legal aid and tenant advocates, real estate and housing representatives, and banking or mortgage industry stakeholders. The group would submit a preliminary report before the 2026 session and a final report before the 2027 session, and it would sunset on June 30, 2027.
The bill does not immediately change substantive property, housing, or criminal law. Instead, it creates an advisory working group housed for administrative purposes in the Attorney General’s office to study squatting and produce recommendations, including proposed legislation. If enacted, it would affect state operations by convening agencies and stakeholders across law enforcement, the judiciary, housing, landlord-tenant, and consumer affairs sectors, and it would likely inform future amendments to trespass, eviction, foreclosure, or landlord-tenant statutes, especially chapter 521, Hawaii Revised Statutes.
The bill appears generally pragmatic and exploratory in tone, with its findings emphasizing that squatting is a real but legally complicated issue that lacks a clear, efficient remedy in some situations. The absence of recorded committee discussion or votes makes it difficult to identify a formal political split, but the structure of the working group suggests an effort to balance enforcement, property-owner, tenant, legal aid, housing, and industry perspectives. Overall, the bill reads as a study measure intended to build consensus and develop recommendations rather than impose an immediate enforcement approach.
The main points of contention implied by the bill are the competing characterizations of occupants as squatters versus tenants, and the balance between stronger enforcement and tenant protections. Property owners and law enforcement are likely to favor clearer authority to remove unauthorized occupants, especially in vacant or abandoned properties where owners cannot be reached, while tenant advocates and legal aid representatives may be concerned about wrongful displacement, due process, and the overlap with landlord-tenant law and eviction procedures. Foreclosure situations and adverse possession issues may also be sensitive because they sit at the intersection of property rights, housing instability, and civil procedure.