There should be a discouraging compensation paid to the suspect if their property is searched and nothing found. An "apologies for your trouble / time", and of course a hearty compensation for any damage done.
Paid by whom? In cases of police getting sued after a wrongful death, the municipality typically pays the bill. The police budget is unaffected. In such a system there's little incentive for police departments to be careful with which property they search, even if the owner is compensated.
What happens if it becomes a “the body must’ve been here at some point and then moved”? For example cadaver dogs have been used on cars, houses, etc. with clearly no body precisely to put under suspicion that a body was under temporary storage.
Exactly. Someone suggested we compensate people who are searched when nothing is found. The next person says that would immediately be gamed. I'm saying it would only be gamed if dog searches don't work.
Personally, I would like to see some sort of registration before an animal or device is used for a search. A search would be invalid unless it is applied for. Then the results must be entered upon completion (or assumed to be a failed search). Then we could see the results and how accurate these animals or "scientific" tests are in practice.
Instead we have warrants essentially backed by dogs who have no track record. The police are allowed to say, "the dog alerted, so drugs must have been present at some point and must have been moved." This has even led to further searches for where the drugs were moved to. All without anyone knowing the actual accuracy or effectiveness of a dog's search ability -- only that it was "certified".
It gets worse than that actually. There was a case where a cadaver dog was well regarded for always being able to find something. This was because the owner kept shards of bone and said the dog found this bone shard at the search. In your record keeping this dog would have 100% success rate and “prove” cadaver dogs really work.