Reply to: Squatting

[Sysman]

I heard that somewhere too. Probably one of those old laws that are still on the books but hard to get away with due to other newer contradictory laws.


Another one I found interesting was if you have ~12-15 acres of land you are entitled to turn it into a farm with certain types of buildings that the planning office can't refuse, apparently. There's a book on the subject ('Field to Farm' IIRC) but not sure if it's as simple as it sounds.

A neighbour bought a 12 acre farm and was determined to keep its status as a farm. All sorts of other advantages such as cheap (metered) water for the livestock, Forestry Commission advice and grants for planting trees. The planning office still had considerable power over living accommodation. Tenant farmers get a good deal as well, and if you compare their rent to your mortgage repayments you will weep.

New Labour's secret weapon against this was their mismanagement of the foot and mouth outbreak.

[Sysman]

In Wales, if you could put a house up on a piece of land overnight, & have a fire burning in the grate in the morning, it was yours.

Dunno if that still applies under the Town & Country Planning, mind you.

That was the essence of the squatters' cottages I mentioned above.

This was in Yorkshire and the houses were built circa 1800-1830 as far as we could tell from old OS maps.

[PAH]

In Wales, if you could put a house up on a piece of land overnight, & have a fire burning in the grate in the morning, it was yours.

I heard that somewhere too. Probably one of those old laws that are still on the books but hard to get away with due to other newer contradictory laws.


Another one I found interesting was if you have ~12-15 acres of land you are entitled to turn it into a farm with certain types of buildings that the planning office can't refuse, apparently. There's a book on the subject ('Field to Farm' IIRC) but not sure if it's as simple as it sounds.

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Like I said in the previous post, it presumably started out with some other, well-meaning intention, and this has been distorted incrementally over time. Or something. But what was that original motivation?

I seem to recall (but don't have time to research) that the original motivation was as follows.

People would go off to the Crusades, or the Wars of the Roses, or whatever, and get killed. Or entire families would be wiped out by the Plague. For whatever reason, property would end up unoccupied, and no heir could be traced.

Rather than let such property revert to wilderness, a custom grew up that people could take de facto possession of it. If they held it unopposed for some time, then they would eventually acquire de jure possession as well.

Sensible enough may years ago. Quite how this ties in with letting someone occupy a property, despite the opposition of an owner whose claim is clearly supported by the Land Registry, I don't know.

I suspect the more recent state of the law is probably due to a view that Swampy's right to have a roof over his head outweighs Fred's claim on his own unoccupied property.

[minestrone]

My old school got compulsory purchased in a very bitter disbute, 100 k for this place?

[Sysman]

There's been a daytime TV show on about empty properties - every council apparently has an empty property officer, and if a property remains empty the owner can be forced to sell.

I remember my council talking about compulsory purchase of empty properties in the early 1980s, and that scared me a little, considering I had one myself. Compulsory purchases typically value your house at peanuts. Quite a lot of those who got rehoused into block towers in the 60s and 70s got something like 50 quid for their compulsorily purchased terrace.

Fortunately my empty house was just a 2 bed bungalow and there were plenty of Victorian terraced houses in that area which had more bedroom space (think attics) and were cheaper to buy.

[Sysman]

Maybe if they're addressing the squatting issue they should also address the ridiculous amount of property left empty or inefficiently used. e.g. An extra tax on property left empty for more than a few months in a row.

Only if they change the tenancy laws so that landlords can have more rights.

I left my house empty in the early 1980s when I was working abroad because at that time I couldn't see being able to charge enough rent to cover the mortgage. A colleague rented his out and had to make himself legally homeless to get back in.

Then found all his furniture and kitchen gear had been replaced with tat.

[Sysman]

Can't rush these things.

Been like it for centuries.

And if you manage to squat for 12 years, then the property is yours.

Yep. There was something about it in the news a year or two ago. Someone who had been squatting since the 70s (but paid their rates and leccy bils) managed to snag a very des res period house in London.

[Sysman]

What logical reason can you give to allow someone to hold court over your property? You invade property here and you get arrested, no ambiguity, the police will turn up and turf you out, with force.

I've a feeling it goes back a long time. One spot I used to live in had several "squatter's cottages", which were built in the 1800s on bits of spare land which the builders didn't own.

I had a bit of legal hassle buying a house too. The owner had paid cash for some of the back garden and hadn't gone through the proper legal channels to get it transferred (the lawyers wanted more money than the land was costing). What I discovered is that if the vendor had been occupying that land for more than 14 years under contest of ownership, it would have been his, but since there hadn't been a contest of ownership, it wasn't. No, that didn't make sense to me either.

Later on the backlash caused by Rachman resulted in a strengthening of tenancy protection laws and they went too far the other way, particularly when inflation kicked in and landlords weren't able to raise rents.

That backlash was also possibly responsible for the attitude of tenants to landlords in the UK; a common attitude among tenants in the 1970s and 1980s was that landlords were evil and there was nothing wrong in ripping them off.

[PAH]

get a job and buy a house

Maybe some people are awake enough to realise that is tantamount to a poverty trap, especially with the trend for house prices and wages over the last decade in particular.

Shelter and food should be a right for living in a civilised society. Squatting highlights that there is something wrong if they would rather camp inside someone elses property than try to acquire or rent their own.

Also, the planning laws mean that you have to either know the right people or have plenty of money to pay the inflated land prices for the few available plots with permission to build your own home.

Then again, maybe the average price (~£160k IIRC) of a pile of bricks is reasonable against the average wage (~£24k IIRC).

[original PM]

Bit confused by this thread - mainly on the posters who are supporting squatting.

At which point do you think it has become acceptable to take something from someone because 'they have more anyway'

If I buy a house and let it sit empty that is my issues and absolutley nothing to do with anyone else - in much the same way if I buy a car and only drive it on Sundays - I own the property/vehicle therefore I choose what to do with it.

Life is tough and yeah people do live on the streets but it will ruin the fabric of society and give these people no impetus to get a job and buy a house of we give them everything for free.

Sorry squatting should be illegal in much the same way as burglary.

It is theft.

[minestrone]

I know someone that works in council housing, all they are interested in is getting 2 numbers to change he says, the number of free houses and the number of people on the list. They fit up nutters with refurbished houses then they end up cutting out the boiler after a day, selling it on then have to sort out the flooding.

[lukemg]

See - These are the very reasons why I have no interest in investing directly in BTL etc. 'Someone pays your mortgage', 'great pension'. Not for me, running sore, illiquid, maintenance needing headache.
If you want to invest in property, buy a property investment trust, it will rise with any increase in house/commercial values and likely pay a dividend on the way. Stick it in an ISA and its tax free too.
Chap I know had a house rented to a single woman, rent stopped and the bloke who wasnt supposed to live there threatened to kill him if he came round again.
It took months to get them out.....

[mudskipper]

There's been a daytime TV show on about empty properties - every council apparently has an empty property officer, and if a property remains empty the owner can be forced to sell.

[vetran]

TL I worry about you, you should become a permie in the public sector.

Actually its a self fulfilling prophecy the worse the tenants get the worse the landlords get.

Decent landlords get screwed over and they leave the business, bad ones enter and control the tenants by force, capitalism only works where there is a choice.

So you don't have any shares pension etc? you sit back while big multinationals make people redundant or employ under age third world labour so the shareholders get a return on investment? You filthy capitalist! Lets take your shares & pension?

Landlords = Cocaine dealers you been trying some product?

Landlords can be monitored and controlled there are quite sophisticated schemes in place for this and legal protection for the tenant. Including the quite excellent idea of holding deposits in escrow, probably badly administered as all these things are.

Sounds like sour grapes to me, did a landlord withhold your deposit because you ruined the carpet and thought it was their responsibility to clean up after you? After all you have a right to a roof over your head?