Squatting is where vacant or abandoned property is occupied without the owner's knowledge or permission, and without any legal right to do so - squatters are trespassers. Squatting trespass can also occur when permission is given to access for one purpose - e.g., maintenance work - but then it is used for something else - i.e., living occupation.
Quote: "When neither their property nor their honour is touched, the majority of men live content." Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), The Prince
Squatting is when someone occupies an empty or abandoned property without the owner's permission, often without his knowledge and without any normal legal right to do so.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 criminalised squatting.
Genuine squatters cannot be moved without a court order.
See Land Registration Act 2002 for changes to the law of Adverse Possession.
Fly-traders and squatters in residential and commercial premises and on vacant land are a continuing problem to property agents, landlords and local authorities.
If you as an occupier have no ownership documents, no lease or tenancy agreement, no record of having paid rent to a landlord, and no other evidence exists that you have occupancy rights, then you may well be occupying illegally.
It is perhaps of no consolation to landlords that squatters often believe they have a perfect right to occupy when properties are left vacant, especially for long periods.
Even so, the squatter has rights. Squatters cannot be evicted from premises without a court possession order, unless they leave voluntarily.
A quicker procedure now exists which allows landlords to apply for an interim possession order, pending a judge's decision to grant a full possession order.
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/ex332_0405.pdf
An important consideration is that a claim for possession is made within 28 days of becoming aware of the existence of squatters occupying your property. If you do not do this the judge will take into consideration whether you, as owner or landlord, should have known about the occupation sooner that you did.
To assist your case you will be invited to make an undertaking to the court that:
1. You will allow the occupier/s back onto the premises (with compensation) if the court later decides you were not entitled to an interim possession order.
2. You will not let the premises, damage or dispose of them until the court makes its final decision by granting a full possession order.
If the court grants an interim possession order the squatters will be required to leave within 24 hours and not return within 12 months.
If the squatter/s refuse to leave they are committing a criminal offence and risk being arrested by the police or being evicted by a court bailiff. They may also be subject to a fine or imprisonment or both.
Full details and advice for both parties, known legally as applicants and respondents, owners or landlords and squatters are available on the Court Service Web Site. A guide for owners/landlords is available in pdf format at: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/ex332_0405.pdf
Landlords would obviously wish to avoid occupation by squatters in the first place. Sensible precautions would be:
If you discover trespassers in your property you should be able to remove them quite legally within a two-week period, providing you go about the process correctly:
Most squatters believe that they have a right to make use of unoccupied property and indeed a sizeable culture of squatting exists today in the UK. Many web sites now exist to advise and support squatting so often squatters occupying your property know as much or indeed more than you do about the law and their rights. This extract from one site gives a flavour:
"Since 1968, over a quarter of a million people in Britain have walked into an uninhabited house owned by someone else and proceeded to set up without seeking permission and without paying rent. By doing so, they have become squatters. Some have been thrown out within hours. Others have stayed for months, even years, before being evicted by bailiffs or leaving under threat of a court order. A few have managed to establish permanent homes.
Most squatting has occurred in old flats and houses in the larger towns and cities, but every conceivable type of empty property has been squatted - from luxury flats to dilapidated slums, from country cottages to suburban semis, from old churches to disused factories
Squatting is an ancient practice, and has occurred at some stage, in different forms, throughout the world. Yet the last 12 years in Britain has seen a spectacular rise in the number of people who have taken over empty buildings. No longer does "squatting" describe the isolated actions of numerous individuals. Instead, it has become a social movement of great significance, whose impact upon housing policy has already been considerable, but whose potential has yet, perhaps, to be fully realised."
