Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:02 pm  

Interesting to note that it's only private and not commercial premises that are covered

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:30 pm  

Compulsory purchase orders could go some way to relieving the shortage in housing.

Property empty for more than a reasonable period of time - owner can't be traced - council buys and rents out. Profits put into bank account so they can be passed to the owner as and when they are located.

People can chat on this thread all they want, but I really do feel that if they returned from holiday to find a bunch of squatters in their house, they would be the first ones wanting the police to take action.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:43 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

Compulsory purchase orders could go some way to relieving the shortage in housing.

Property empty for more than a reasonable period of time - owner can't be traced - council buys and rents out. Profits put into bank account so they can be passed to the owner as and when they are located.

People can chat on this thread all they want, but I really do feel that if they returned from holiday to find a bunch of squatters in their house, they would be the first ones wanting the police to take action.

Returning from holiday to find squatters isn't the usual scenario though is it - the usual scenario is that a property is chosen that has stood empty for some time, ie months.

The major problem with councils administering empty buildings is that many of the empty buildings that you see in most towns are already council owned either because they just don't have the money to modernise or carry out repairs to empty properties, or because the properties are in undesirable locations and won't rent out at commercial rates (chicken and egg situation).

A prime example was the one in Birmingham on the BBC News this morning, a substantial house that had obviously been a park keepers house, stone built, good quality housing and yet boarded up by the council that owned it, probably because it needed money spending on it to bring it up to current rental standards, money that all councils just don't have.

Over thirty years there has been a move away from local authority housing and its only now that we're starting to notice that, actually, council rental properties weren't such a bad idea after all, mainly because any private landlord or even housing associations don't necessarily address the immediate need of having to supply good housing stock in front of the need to make a profit and perpetuate the chase and myth of "market rents".

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:37 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Returning from holiday to find squatters isn't the usual scenario though is it - the usual scenario is that a property is chosen that has stood empty for some time, ie months.

The major problem with councils administering empty buildings is that many of the empty buildings that you see in most towns are already council owned either because they just don't have the money to modernise or carry out repairs to empty properties, or because the properties are in undesirable locations and won't rent out at commercial rates (chicken and egg situation).

A prime example was the one in Birmingham on the BBC News this morning, a substantial house that had obviously been a park keepers house, stone built, good quality housing and yet boarded up by the council that owned it, probably because it needed money spending on it to bring it up to current rental standards, money that all councils just don't have.

Over thirty years there has been a move away from local authority housing and its only now that we're starting to notice that, actually, council rental properties weren't such a bad idea after all, mainly because any private landlord or even housing associations don't necessarily address the immediate need of having to supply good housing stock in front of the need to make a profit and perpetuate the chase and myth of "market rents".

I have a suggestion to help solve the housing shortage and also bring us back to "living", as opposed to "affordable" rents. "Affordable" rents are usually taken to mean 80% of the prevailing rate, which quite obviously means they are only affordable to a select few.

Government, local & national, own thousands of empty properties and many more thousands of hectares of suitable building land. Given that the average price of building a property, measured in labour and materials cost only, is around 40% of a new property's value - the other 60% is the cost of land. We should offer a 99 year lease to charities or not-for-profit organisations at a peppercorn rent, on the proviso that the houses/flats are then rented at 50% of the prevailing rate. They would also have a covenant that the properties could never be purchased under a right-to-buy.

Institutional investors, like pension funds and insurance companies, would be falling over themselves to fund the builds because they would be investing in gilt-edge securities at a far better rate than government bonds. There is no reason that this could not work with existing empty properties, in need of full refurbishment.

The exchequer would benefit from an increase in employment, so a lower benefit bill because more people would be legitimately removed from the unemployment register and more income tax and NI would be raised. It would also see an increase in VAT receipts because all of these properties would need to be carpeted & furnished. It would further see a reduction in the amount of housing benefits paid because of the lower rents. This rnt reduction would then have a knock-on effect in the private rented sector too.

Of course there would be losers. Banks and building societies would take a hit because suddenly they would see their asset bank reduced as property values fell. The other losers would be those who pumped their money into buy-to-let schemes because they'd have to compete with "living" rents.

But hey, we're all in this together ain't we?

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:01 pm  

tb wrote:

I tend to agree with lawyer David Allen Gree on Twitter

It's a bit more than simply trespassing though isn't it? It's a step further. I see squatting as another form of burglary. You're trespassing and then essentially appropriating the property by using it as if it were your own.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:45 pm  

I'd think the logical - and therefore not likely to happen - version would have been for anyone wanting immediate possession of their property to be able to demand action to remove squatters - see the largely hypothetical, Daily Mail type, scenario of 'coming home from holidays and finding your house has been taken over by a bunch of lazy students' sort of squatters. Even if you own a property that you intend to use in the near future, then you should be able to evict.

But for those properties left empty and run down, where is the harm in allowing them to be used? Yes, if they are damaged then sue for that by all means - perhaps it would have a positive consequence in that the property would be left undamaged.
BTW, I remember in one of the papers a few years back - possibly The Daily Telegraph? - a story about a squatted property in a 'good' area that had been left to rot, but whose squatters restored to good condition during their stay... Anyone else remember this?



But hey... We all know that the homeless all choose that lifestyle anyway don't we, so what's the concern? They can always go back to mummy and daddy in Ken.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 11:08 pm  

One of my former colleagues has just got a job in London working for Tesco as a technical adviser. His rent is £800 per month for a room in a shared house. How can someone on a minimum wage, or worse still on the dole, afford that sort of rent? No wonder London has a large number of squats!

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Fri Aug 31, 2012 11:24 pm  

Been talking about this today, I guy I work with has been in the same 'squat' for nearly 10 years, no one approached him or questioned him, it's in Crouch End and it's a decent property.

Apparently there's an amount of time in which if you can prove you've lived somewhere for so long you can claim it as your own, it's looking like that may happen for him, and if it does wow a 3 bed house for free.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:30 am  

cod'ead wrote:

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.

Oh right, I see. I disagree with you so OBVIOUSLY I don't have a clue about the subject.

Grow up, and get yourself up to date.

Re: "Squatters' Rights" abolished : Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:46 am  

I find any defence of squatting to be very illogical. If I found a car not being used on a street, broke in to it and went for a scenic country drive for the day you'd quite rightly call me a car thief and expect me to arrested.

That said this law should have been accompanied by something that heavily incentivised/forced property owners not to leave their properties empty for extended periods of time.