PROPERTY-OWNERS in England and Wales have been urged to seek the emergency protection of the courts to remove squatters under guidelines published yesterday by the British government following a sharp rise in the number of occupations.
Up to 15,000 properties in London alone are held by squatters, many of whom argue that they cannot afford the city’s high accommodation costs and who can receive free advice from the Advisory Service for Squatters.
Publishing an online guide for property-owners, housing minister Grant Shapps said: “Squatting is anti-social, undesirable and unfair on homeowners. This government is not prepared to stand that situation continuing, and in particular we’re keen to provide better advice for people who find that they are victims.”
Unlike Scotland, where squatting is a criminal offence, it is only a civil offence in England and Wales, though communities secretary Eric Pickles is believed to want to make it prosecutable. Officials have advised that this could take time and prove more complicated than ministers believe.
Under the existing law, English and Welsh property-owners can go to the courts seeking an interim possession order, instructing squatters to move within 24 hours or face prosecution and imprisonment for up to six months on conviction, along with an order requiring them not to return to the property for 12 months.
Though squatters usually seek out abandoned properties, there have been a number of cases in London recently where homeowners have returned from holidays or absences to allow refurbishment work to be carried out to find their homes occupied.
In one case, a man was left homeless for a fortnight when his five-bedroom house was forcibly occupied.
Criticising the Advisory Service for Squatters as “an estate agent for squatters”, Mr Shapps claimed that it encouraged squatters to change locks and put up notices saying that they cannot be easily evicted: “It can’t be right that there are people literally advertising to come and take over a house,” he claimed.
The service, which points out that there are 82,000 unoccupied properties in London and up to a million throughout the United Kingdom, rejected the criticism.
Its spokesman, Leslie Jones, said: “We don’t operate as an estate agent. We help people to stay within the law. The huge majority of them go out of their way to seek out buildings that have been empty in the long term.
“They live in them quietly, without causing criminal damage or disturbance to neighbours. Unfortunately, as a group offering legal and practical advice to squatters across England and Wales, we too often see owners and police taking heavy-handed – and often illegal – action against squatters and against vulnerable tenants and subtenants who are simply trying to house themselves in our very expensive city during a severe housing shortage.”