How to Remove a Squatter in Arkansas: The Legal Process for Owners

If someone has settled into your Arkansas property without permission, you now have two routes, not one. Since Act 238 of 2025, Arkansas has a criminal offense of unlawful squatting (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-39-215), and a no-paperwork occupant can be reported to law enforcement, arrested, and charged. The separate civil route — an unlawful detainer or ejectment action in the Arkansas Circuit Court for the county where the property sits — is still how you get a court order and a sheriff-executed writ that puts you back in possession. Which one fits depends almost entirely on what paperwork the occupant can produce. This page is general legal information for property owners, not legal advice, and Arkansas rules change, so confirm the current statutes or talk to an Arkansas attorney before you act.

The 2025 change: unlawful squatting is now a crime

Older guidance — including an earlier version of this page — told Arkansas owners that a settled occupant was purely a civil problem and that police would not help. That is no longer the law. Act 238 of 2025 (HB1049, approved March 4, 2025) added Ark. Code Ann. § 5-39-215. Read the enrolled act yourself — it is short. A person commits unlawful squatting if he or she knowingly enters another's premises, knowingly resides there for any period of time, knowingly acts without lawful authority, and cannot produce at least one of these four documents:

• a deed or mortgage statement in his or her name for the premises;
• a lease agreement bearing the name and signature of the owner or the owner's authorized representative;
• a valid written or electronic agreement or communication authorizing the person to be there; or
• a receipt or other reliable evidence of a rent payment to the owner or the owner's representative dated within the last sixty (60) days.

Three more conditions must also be met under § 5-39-215(b): the premises was not open to the public at the time of entry; the owner has directed the person to leave or contacted law enforcement to make a report of unlawful squatting; and — this one drives your timing — no pending litigation exists between the owner and the occupant. "Premises" is defined broadly for this offense: a dwelling, a commercial building, or vacant or unimproved real property.

Penalties escalate: a Class B misdemeanor, a Class A misdemeanor for a second offense, and a Class D felony for a third. If the occupant knowingly produces a false document to justify being there, that is a Class D felony on its own. And § 5-39-215(g) gives the aggrieved owner a private cause of action for damages, including restitution and reasonable attorney's fees.

Making the police report the statute contemplates

Act 238 was written to answer the "sorry, that's a civil matter" brush-off. Two subsections do the work. Under § 5-39-215(c), a law enforcement agency may only accept a report of unlawful squatting from the owner of the premises or the owner's authorized representative — so the report has to come from you, and you are the person the statute empowers to make it. Under § 5-39-215(d), an officer acting in good faith in response to such a report is immune from criminal and civil liability, which removes the exposure officers used to cite when they declined to act.

Two cautions, stated plainly, because they decide whether the criminal route works for you:

• Report before you sue. The offense requires that no pending litigation exist between you and the occupant (§ 5-39-215(b)(4)). If you have already filed the unlawful detainer case, the criminal route may be foreclosed while that case is pending.
• Do not file a report you cannot back up. Section 3 of Act 238 amended Ark. Code Ann. § 5-54-122(c)(1) to make a false report of unlawful squatting a Class D felony.

Be realistic about who this reaches. A former tenant who can wave a lease you signed, or a rent receipt from the last 60 days, is not an unlawful squatter under the statute — that person is a holdover, and you remove them through civil eviction. The same is generally true of an immediate family member of the owner, whom § 5-39-215(a)(3)(B) leaves out of its description of squatting. Act 238 is aimed at the occupant with no paperwork at all.

The civil route: unlawful detainer and ejectment

A criminal charge is not a judgment of possession. To get the person and their belongings out lawfully and to recover the property, you use one of two civil actions. Both are Circuit Court matters, and both are laid out in the Arkansas Judiciary's official Civil & Criminal Benchbook.

• Unlawful detainer (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-304) is the path when the occupant entered or stayed under something resembling a tenancy — classically a holdover who stays after the term ends, someone who obtained possession peaceably and then holds it after a written demand for possession, or a tenant who, after three days' written notice to quit, refuses to leave for nonpayment of rent. The Arkansas Attorney General states the notice requirement flatly: "Unlawful detainer actions require a landlord to provide you with a three days' written notice to vacate."
• Ejectment (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-201) is the action against a true squatter with no tenancy who claims a right to possession against the title owner. The statute is as broad as it sounds: ejectment "may be maintained in all cases in which the plaintiff is legally entitled to the possession of the premises."

The unlawful detainer procedure is concrete, and you can hold the court to it:

• Serve the correct written notice and keep proof of how and when you delivered it.
• File a signed complaint with the clerk of the Circuit Court of the county, together with an affidavit of your lawful possession and the occupant's detainer (§§ 18-60-306 to 18-60-307).
• The clerk issues a summons and a notice of intention to issue a writ of possession. The occupant then has five days after the summons is served to file written objections. If none are filed, a writ of possession issues (§ 18-60-307).
• If objections are filed, the court sets a hearing and orders the writ if you show you are likely to succeed on the merits and post adequate security. An occupant who wants to stay must post security of their own within five days of issuance of the writ.
• Only the county sheriff carries out the physical removal — never you.

Your own clock: the deadlines that run against the owner

The earlier version of this page gave you no deadline at all. There are three, and one of them can kill the very case you were about to file:

• Three years' peaceable and uninterrupted possession by the occupant bars a forcible entry and unlawful detainer complaint (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-61-104). If someone has sat in your property undisturbed that long, the "standard path" may be closed to you and ejectment is the vehicle. Do not let a long-settled occupant run this clock out.
• Suits for land must be brought within seven years after the right accrued (§ 18-61-101) — but this is not absolute. If the owner is a minor or of unsound mind, the period is tolled, and suit may be brought within three years after turning 21 or coming of sound mind. If you inherited a property, or were incapacitated while someone moved in, do not assume you are time-barred. Get advice before you give up.
• An entry on land is not valid as a claim unless suit is brought within one year after the entry and within seven years of when the right of entry accrued (§ 18-61-102).

Adverse possession in Arkansas, stated correctly

Owners often panic that a squatter will "own" the property if they stay long enough. The bar is higher than it is usually described, and it is conjunctive. Under Act 776 of 1995 (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-11-106), the claimant must have actual or constructive possession and either:

• have held color of title to the property for at least seven years and paid the ad valorem taxes on it during that time; or
• have held color of title to real property contiguous to the land claimed for at least seven years and paid the taxes on that contiguous property.

Color of title and tax payment are required together — not one or the other. Paying taxes alone is generally not enough, with one narrow route the statute itself creates: color of title may be established by paying the ad valorem taxes for seven years on unimproved and unenclosed land, or fifteen years on wild and unimproved land, provided the true owner has not also paid or made a bona fide good-faith effort to pay. These statutory requirements are "in addition to all other requirements," so the common-law elements still apply on top: possession that is actual, open, notorious, hostile, exclusive, and continuous for the whole period. Someone squatting for a few weeks or months, paying no taxes, has no ownership claim. But an unchallenged occupant paying the taxes on your vacant, unfenced acreage is exactly the scenario that tax route was written for, so do not sit on it.

Never use self-help

Changing the locks, cutting the utilities, taking the doors off, or hauling out the occupant's belongings is not a shortcut — it is how you become the defendant. Arkansas's forcible entry statute (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-303) reaches exactly this conduct, including putting the goods of the party in possession out of doors, and entering peaceably and then turning the occupant out by force or by threats. Make the police report, file the case, and let the sheriff execute the writ.

When to get help

Eviction and ejectment paperwork in Arkansas is technical, and a defective notice or the wrong action can send you back to the start and cost you weeks. It is worth talking to an Arkansas landlord-tenant attorney if the occupant is fighting back, produces a lease, asserts an ownership interest, or has been in place for years. Lower-income owners and tenants alike can sometimes get guidance from Arkansas legal aid organizations. Because landlord-tenant rules can carry local city or county exceptions and the statutes are periodically amended, always confirm the current Arkansas law before relying on any statement here.

Official Legal Sources for Arkansas

This page is based on Arkansas state landlord–tenant law. Laws change — verify the current text directly against the official sources below. This is general legal information, not legal advice.

• Arkansas landlord–tenant statutes (full text) — reproduced on this site from the public-domain Arkansas Code, because Arkansas publishes its official code only through a commercial service.
• Arkansas Attorney General - Landlord and Tenant Rights (Public Protection / Consumer Protection Division) — official state resource.

Local ordinances may apply. This page covers Arkansas state law. Your city or county may add protections — such as rent control, just-cause eviction, rental registration, or stricter housing codes — that change these rules. Check your local city or county ordinances.