Marion County officials are seeking judicial intervention to clear out squatters and demolish a burnt, unsafe home that has become a severe nuisance to the surrounding neighborhood.
The Marion County Board of County Commissioners will vote on a request to proceed with filing legal action against the property during its regular meeting on Tuesday, July 7.
The property in question is located at 20085 SE 140th Street in Umatilla, within the Big Scrub Campsites subdivision. According to county property records, the parcel is officially owned by James and Peggy Travis.
However, code enforcement research indicates that Peggy Travis passed away in 2010, and multiple attempts to reach James Travis at addresses of record in Lexington, Mississippi, and Thomasville, Georgia, have gone completely unanswered.
With the legal owners absent, the property has been overtaken by squatters. A county staff report states that the property’s primary residential structure previously burned down, leaving behind a dangerous, uninhabitable shell.
The current occupants cannot obtain the necessary permits to legally repair, replace, or demolish the burnt building, and instead, they have begun constructing new, unsafe structures on the site entirely without permits.
In addition to the illegal construction, the squatters are actively maintaining the property in a public nuisance condition by keeping unserviceable vehicles, large amounts of trash, and excessive junk scattered across the lot.
During an inspection in December 2025, a code enforcement officer noted a vehicle running on the property that belonged to a known squatter who had previously been caught occupying a different home in the exact same subdivision.
County staff have made numerous attempts to rectify the situation, including mailing and physically posting a 10-day notice of intent to abate the nuisance at the property in late 2025. The notice cited the occupants for maintaining an unsafe structure and accumulating junk that is “manifestly injurious to the morals and manners of the people” in the local community.
Despite the warnings, the squatters have remained, and the property has continued to deteriorate.
While Marion County Code Enforcement technically has the authority to abate the nuisance by removing the unsafe structures on its own, the County Attorney’s Office is recommending a more formal legal route. Because the property is actively occupied by individuals who do not own it, and there is no contact with a readily identifiable owner, officials are seeking to file an enjoinment of nuisance action with the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court of Marion County.
According to a legal request memorandum, officials believe that having formal judicial oversight to enjoin the nuisance is preferable to simple administrative abatement. A court order would officially authorize the county to safely remove the squatters, demolish the unsafe burnt structures, clear the unserviceable vehicles, and completely clean up the accumulated junk, finally ending the danger to the surrounding residential community.
The vote comes during the exact same meeting in which commissioners will decide the fate of another chronic nuisance property in Summerfield that has racked up nearly $10,000 in code enforcement liens, highlighting the county’s ongoing battle against severely blighted lots and absentee owners.
The Marion County Board of County Commissioners will host its regular meeting on Tuesday, July 7, at the McPherson Governmental Campus in Ocala.
What are your thoughts on how the county handles nuisance properties, absentee owners, and squatters? Share them in a comment below or write a letter to the editor.