Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:07 pm  

Sheldon wrote:

If they live in it it's not empty.

But the proposal was a replacing council tax with land tax. I imagine that this would affect all properties, regardless of if anyone is actually in residence.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:19 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

But the proposal was a replacing council tax with land tax. I imagine that this would affect all properties, regardless of if anyone is actually in residence.

It's the value of the land that's taxed, not the property that sits on it. Hence the name: Land Value Taxation

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 1:18 pm  

ROBINSON wrote:

...It won't make any difference at all. None, whatsoever...

Of course it would make a difference.
A lot of people sitting on empty properties, finding that they were being taxed on them, would want to divest, surely?
How could it not make a difference?
There will be many who wouldn't agree with it, sure ... but to say it would make no difference?

ROBINSON wrote:

... It won't work, and it's a stupid idea...

Exquisitely argued, Oh you've swayed me there.

ROBINSON wrote:

... Especially when the subject is squatters, who NEVER ever have any justification for squatting.

NEVER is quite sweeping.

If I went away on holiday and came back to find someone living in my home, I'd be extremely narked, as would just about everyone in the same situation ... and I think we'd all say that just wasn't a fair reason to squat.
However, if I were homeless and skint and I knew of, say, a house owned by a foreign company, boarded-up and hadn't been occupied for years (an example on R4 this morning), I might think I was justified in putting my sleeping bag in there rather than across the front doorway of Marks and Spencer.

Then again, if those administering the rental market were a little more innovative maybe there wouldn't be so many unoccupied houses.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 1:27 pm  

When I was a poor and starving student down the smoke, I and a few mates liberated a very des res just off Ken High St for a few months. We were I suppose squatters, though never bothered with any of the notices etc. All the time we lived there, nobody ever spoke to us, nobody called. We did no harm and caused no damage. How did we make the world any worse?

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 1:38 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

When I was a poor and starving student down the smoke, I and a few mates liberated a very des res just off Ken High St for a few months. We were I suppose squatters, though never bothered with any of the notices etc. All the time we lived there, nobody ever spoke to us, nobody called. We did no harm and caused no damage. How did we make the world any worse?

You probably made some of your neighbours, the ones who were rather stupidly paying extremely large mortgages or extremely high rents for their identical properties, shake their fists and shout "Grrrr" at you as they climbed into their extremely expensive cars parked at their extremely expensive parking spots each morning.

"Grrrr" they would have said through gritted teeth, "pesky students, shoot them all, wait until I'm an MP rather than just an unpaid intern, I'll have them all made illegal that I will", and David, CallMeDave, will have climbed into the car that his daddy bought for him, waved goodbye at the house that his daddy rented for him and drove off to the internship that his daddy organised for him.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 3:16 pm  

ROBINSON wrote:

BLAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Again? Come on, change the record.

It won't make any difference at all. None, whatsoever. It won't work, and it's a stupid idea. Especially when the subject is squatters, who NEVER ever have any justification for squatting.

Go on, admit it, you don't know the first thing about LVT do you?

Not only that, you'r too pig-headed to even read some basic facts about LVT. Similar to the right-wing press, you'd sooner just reject something that you haven't got a clue about.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:38 pm  

Let's extend the principle of squatters' rights.

As you are reading RL Fans at the moment, the chances are you are not driving you car. Mind if someone else jumps in and goes for a ride?

As for your savings account, it's Friday night and you are clearly not actively using that money at the moment. Would you mind if someone accessed you bank account, took the money and blew it at Stringfellows?

Very few buildings are left open access. Squatting is thus a usually criminal damage (to get into the building), typically followed by theft.

This activity is also known as burglary.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:44 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

You probably made some of your neighbours, the ones who were rather stupidly paying extremely large mortgages or extremely high rents for their identical properties, shake their fists and shout "Grrrr" at you as they climbed into their extremely expensive cars parked at their extremely expensive parking spots each morning.

"Grrrr" they would have said through gritted teeth, "pesky students, shoot them all, wait until I'm an MP rather than just an unpaid intern, I'll have them all made illegal that I will", and David, CallMeDave, will have climbed into the car that his daddy bought for him, waved goodbye at the house that his daddy rented for him and drove off to the internship that his daddy organised for him.

[tb]

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:55 pm  

I tend to agree with lawyer David Allen Gree on Twitter

“@DavidAllenGreen: The criminalization of what should be civil law matters continues.  Now squatting joins copyright infringement. Depressing.”

“@DavidAllenGreen: Trespass to land, like copyright infringement, should be a tort and not a criminal offence.  Still a wrong, but not criminally so.”

“@DavidAllenGreen: Bit by bit, the British state is shifting property rights from a civil law to a criminal law basis. Both misconceived and highly illiberal.”

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:03 pm  

You could add the criminalisation of infringing OlympicTM - related intellectual property rights of multinational corporations who are hardly short of a lawyer.