California, squatting is legal, and a squatter can claim rights to a property after residing there for a certain time. It takes five years of continuous use or maintenance for a squatter to make an adverse possession claim. The squatter must prove that they have occupied the property for an uninterrupted amount of time, and they cannot abandon the property, return to it later, and then claim to have possessed the property for the entire length of time.1 Landlords must follow the California eviction court process to evict squatters.
Anyway if you can find something that's not blocked off and boarded up it should be as simple as move in call power and water and wait for the landlord to show id generally go look at a a listing of foreclosures and go from there banks are alot slower ime than a private owner if they realize you are there. Lastly after the housing crash in 08 laws where restructured so all leases had to be honored through foreclosures that is to say if you had a BS lease bank would have to honor it till it's up. Other than that Matt has a lot of good sections with related info if you wander around the site some.
Welcome and happy home hunting.
