Legal Definitions - deforcement

Deforcement refers to the act of forcibly preventing someone from taking or retaining possession of property, typically land, to which they have a legal right.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Example 1: Imagine a situation where a family has legally purchased a new home and holds the deed. When they arrive to move in, they find a group of individuals has illegally occupied the house, changed the locks, and physically blocks their entry, threatening them if they try to come onto the property. This act of forcibly keeping the rightful owners out of their property constitutes deforcement.

• Example 2: Consider a commercial landlord who has obtained a court order to evict a business tenant for failing to pay rent. When the landlord, accompanied by law enforcement, attempts to repossess the premises, the tenant barricades the doors, refuses to leave, and uses physical force or threats to prevent the landlord from entering and taking back control of the leased space. This forceful resistance to a lawful repossession is an act of deforcement.

• Example 3: A farmer owns a parcel of land adjacent to a national park. A portion of the farmer's land, clearly marked by survey, is a valuable grazing area. Park rangers, mistakenly believing this section belongs to the park, erect a fence on the farmer's side of the boundary and physically prevent the farmer from accessing that part of their property, even after being shown the legal deeds. The rangers' actions, in forcibly withholding the land from its true owner, would be considered deforcement.