Squatters Law

[giraffesCantGoBackToSchool]

In England and Wales is set to become clear so easier to get squatters out.

People on BBC opposing it - how can you oppose it when peoples houses are occupied by squatters and they can't get back in?

Not something I know a lot about - I am prepared to chance my veiws so feel free to educate me. I am in Scotland and we have different rules.

Squatting via MoT licence was not law breaking nor theft. These houses were condemned and awaiting demolition pending the due process re road planning appeals. Permission to squat free of charge was given. And if one is given permission to live without charge as a student/young artist in expensive London, you'd have to be a bit of a mug to choose to pay rent for properties often no better than the licensed squat.

I am afraid that I am discussing times when squatting can be used in a legislated and planned manner.

You really didn't read my initial posts very accurately Did you, Novack?

If squatting was a huge public order problem and a threat to society then I'd say the criminal law should deal with it.

But it's not. That doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy for someone whose property is squatted but there is a remedy under civil law and they should take that route rather than expecting the criminal justice system to solve it with all the related costs to the taxpayer.

Civil law already covers property disputes, debt recovery, private parking charges and far too many others to list. That's where these disputes should lie and it's very disingenuous of the Government to talk in terms of people being deprived of their homes when they know full well they are talking about people being temporarily deprived of their property. That's annoying, costly and frustrating but for which there is a civil remedy that works very well and is cheap for the rest of us who are totally unaffected.

Thinking about it, there are circumstances where it would be very bad news for any government to send in the police mob-handed to evict people.

Squatting was very popular in British cities in the '40s and '50s as men were demobbed and found their houses had been blown up and their families had nowhere to live.

There was a massive housing crisis and definite public order problems when landlords, with some justification, wanted their property back.

That's why we had an enormous council house building programme and that's why some things are best left to the civil law.

'Nice people are squatters' is no better an argument than 'owners shouldn't leave houses empty'.

It must be a big enough problem to bring in laws though. But to be honest, walking into a house that someone else owns - living there or not - its just theft. Just because I don't drive my car, doesn't mean someone else can help themselves to it.

There were a few cases in London last yeaw with people coming back to their own homes (one woman had been away for a day or so to visit someone) to find someone else had either helped themselves (and to their belongings) or were saying that they were renting it legitimately. Because of the law, the owners could do nothing. This is complete madness! One poor woman lost stacks of her belongings and clothes and family momentos were destroyed by a family who moved into her home - so she was left homeless until they decided to move on. Maybe its more of a problem in London with people doing it for criminal ratjer than necessity purposes.

scaredy why don't you and your neighbours take the housing association to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal

They are cheap, extremely sympathetic to people in your plight and the hearings are not at all intimidating.

You may be able to form your own Right To Manage Company or get an independent manager appointed because it sounds like your Housing Association is not a fit body to manage the block.

Presumably while letting you think you're helpless they're still happy to take rent/part payment/service charges for failing to make the block secure and take action to ensure squatters do not gain repeated access.

Thank's for the tip, I regularly talk to our caretaker. He works very hard running all times of the night and day, listening to tip off's from people, physically chasing would be squatters away. They usually come and have a good look around first before they break the communal doors and then break in. Really they break in and then say oh no not us it was already broken. How do the real owners prove otherwise? My elderly neighbour was up all night, very scared, watching as a group broke most of the windows in a flat, ready to move in the next day. Instead the police spent the night securing the place.
Alot of people don't seem to realise what squatting is about today, in London. They behave like criminals and as of today the law finally recognises they are criminals.

A few months ago squatters moved into the house of an old guy on my street who had been in hospital for some weeks. It seems indefensible to me that that vulnerable old man would then have to go through an expensive and stressful civil procedure to get his own home back.

I note that the new law only applies to residential buildings, so presumably not to abandoned industrial/municipal buildings, where I would be more sympathetic to squatters moving in.

frontpaw Squatting is not theft. That's not me saying that, it's the law. For something to be theft you must have the intention of permanently depriving someone of their property.

If you changed that to make squatting theft you'd end up with horrible problems. For instance, how would you deal with a tenant who withheld their rent or a landlord who kept a tenant's service charge?

You can permanently deprive someone of their property through squatting. You have to exclude them for a period of time - nine years or possibly 12. To claim squatter's rights you also have to exclude all others in that time. After that period of time you get a limited title which will become a full title after about 20 years. If you want to sell before you get full title the buyer may be advised by their solicitor to pull out or at least negotiate a hefty discount.

It's quite difficult to do that but not impossible. There are instances of councils losing houses to tenants through forgetfulness but they're very rare and it makes you wonder whether a local authority is a fit body to be managing valuable public assets if their officers are as stupid as that.

I read the case you describe to. It was an Eastern European family who were renting from a criminal gang. I can't remember the full details but I believe they moved on in a matter of days before the police arrived.

They did steal and cause damage which is horrible but no different to burglars breaking in and taking a shit on your carpet, which is something I've experienced.

The squatters who moved in while the woman was at the shops left immediately they realised the house was in occupation and caused no damage apart from to the locks or windows. They were members of one of the many squatters' groups that pass around information on empty properties and how to stay within the law. They printed the wrong address.

Again, I'm not excusing that or diminishing her distress but the fact that those two stories made the papers shows that squatting in primary homes is unusual.

btw I'm not a lawyer. It's best to check with an expert first. I do know about how newspapers and politicians go about whipping up public fury out of things that aren't a big deal on closer inspection.

I really do think you should check with the LVT scaredy. They are so good and probably would be able to tell you on the phone whether they could help or not.

My friend lived in All Saints Road, Notting Hill. Nice, but also not so nice. Junkies and prostitutes were always breaking into her building. In the end a dealer took up semi-permanent residence under the stairs and scared off the lot of them and kept order amongst his customers.

Reggie wasn't ideal but he was better than what they were previously living with.

What do you think about my example above, limitedperiod? Just because something is unusual doesn't mean it shouldn't be criminalised!

Wasn't there a case last year of squatters moving into the home of a couple who were about to have a baby? They'd decorated their new home ready to start a family life and some no-marks moved in while they were away, the justification being that between the couple they owned more than one property? Something like that anyway. It was pretty awful to watch.

Mooncup who told him he had to do that?

He sounds like what's called a 'displaced residential occupier'.

He could have called the police or had someone do it on his behalf if he wasn't up to it. It is a crime and the police have to get rid of them.

If the police told him it wasn't their problem they are either ignorant or a lazy disgrace and someone should make an official complaint on his behalf.

If you're about to move into a house to make it your primary home, even if you have somewhere to live in the meantime, you can still call the police if squatters move in.

You have to serve them a notice under the 1977 Criminal Law Act first which is a pain in the neck but is reasonably straightforward.

Again the police will arrest them if they don't go.

x-posted mooncup.

That's why I'm saying the 'new' law isn't new. It's been in force more than 30 years.

But the idea of having squatters take over your home naturally makes every one.

After the story about the woman who returned from the shops and found the locks changed my mum was genuinely frightened to pick up her pension in case a load of crusties with dogs on strings moved in and liberated her cats because pet ownership is animal abuse (To some people. Personally I can't think of anything better than being one of my mum's cats) .

I don't know the details, limitedperiod, but earlier you said:

'That doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy for someone whose property is squatted but there is a remedy under civil law and they should take that route rather than expecting the criminal justice system to solve it with all the related costs to the taxpayer.'

Am I missing something here?

Yes, cagney they were the 'protected intending occupiers' I was talking about.

It took them about three weeks which is a bloody pain in the neck, particularly at such a vulnerable time, but there is already a law to get rid of these people and we don't need another one.

Yes but why should anyone have to wait for 3 weeks? The police should be able to kick in the door and arrest squatters in those circumstances. If the law is already adequate, why didn't that happen?

cagney what if someone was lying? People do, you know. The police are not your private security guards and they have to act within the law for everyone's benefit.

Sorry, mooncup my reply disappeared.

I thought I made it clear that the civil law applied to unoccupied properties. Sorry, if I didn't. Recovering them is an expensive, time-consuming and sometimes distressing process but it's not an emergency and there is an adequate remedy.

It is always an offence to squat somewhere that is a primary residence or intended primary residence as in the case of the man and his pregnant wife cagney mentioned.

The police can and will eject them either immediately in the case of a primary residence or in reasonably short order in the case of an intended primary residence.

Meant to say this: But the idea of having squatters take over your home naturally makes everyone scared

What annoys me more than the fantasy that squatters are lurking round the corner waiting for you to go on holiday are the cynical efforts to make everyone terrified about it.

Burglars are more likely to break in and nick your telly which is a vile experience but there aren't horror stories about that.

Probably because like squatters who mistakenly enter primary residences, burglars tend not to make themselves at home either.

Squatting should not be a crime. When i finished uni, when i started my business and I struggled to find somewhere to live as I had no money for a depoist on a property and I was not eligible for housing as my parents lived in the same cit, I moved into a squat. I met some amazing and not so amazing people. I experienced a side of the world which has left me open minded with a wide and varied circle of friends. I grew a business and a network. I paid tax and my gas/electric bills. We set up community groups and art groups and a soup kitchen for those without the facilities to cook for themselves and we used the food supermarkets throw away to do this. I have a much more rounded view of the world many (Dm readers) people walk past and ignore. For this i am grateful and i am sure a lot of the musicians/artists/crafts people we all respect (Anthony Gormley? David Bowie?) have all spent time in a squat.
From seeing friends 'break' properties during that time they would find out from a free housing list what properties had been free for YEARS and only enter when they knew it was empty. And they ALWAYS paid their bills.
I think it is just another way of the con-dem government further squashing the poorest for the benefit of the richest.

It's not squashing the poor. It simply means that now it is a criminal law so the police can cart the illegal squatters away straight away instead of the poor householder having to go thought the whole civil court process. And of course if the squatters keep reoffending then the governement will provide housing for them, and meals, and a bucket for them to wee in.

Wow. I've been working poor most of my adult life and never thought that entitled me to break into someone's property and live there rent free.

Seemingly it's ok and you can call yourself an artist and apply for a grant. Don't call the grant, benefits though and god forbid you live on a sink estate as even the dossers in the squats look down on you to as your drugs are not as expensive as their prime morrocan weed.

Thanks limited! I still feel that three weeks to recover the house you were about to move into is pretty awful, but am clearer now on the distinctions between different sorts of squatting.