BULLITT

Rhetorically speaking how many people or situations are you aware of that has meant that yours, or someone's door has been left open when they left the house. Even so, when there is evidence of the fact that the house is lived in, general things like used plates, cups etc in the sink/dishwasher, letters addressed to the owner (I'm excluding Tenants etc rental properties) in the house - not in the hallway by the door so there is still evidence that the house is lived in. Even IF say the door happened to be open and they walked passed, they still do not have the right to just move in.

They've exploited a loop-hole in the law and often in most reported cases have forced their way into people homes with the intention of squatting when the owners are out at work etc.

Now they don't have that advantage any more.

tony de wonderful

By loophole you mean presumption of innocence?

David Lock

Are you a squatter or just being deliberately obtuse/awkward/bloody minded to stir things up?

dl

SirFozzalot

Good news! Why should anyone have the right to stay in a property they don't own for free when the owners want them out?

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

I think Joe is using Scoobynet and its members as subject matter for his sociology degree.

I've given up with reasoning.

Dingdongler

Yes, it is argument for the sake of it. His responses are almost text book 'devil's advocate' type replies more befitting a low level sixth form debating society than mature informed discussion.

I think it goes to show just how useless a sociology degree is if this is the level of worthless discussion they undertake.

As you said, just what is the point in trying to discuss something with somebody who'll say anything to take the opposing view in some sort of retarded sociology lab experiment.

It's quite pathetic.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Fantastic that they have finally done this. Its totally amazing that it has taken this long to finally achieve.

I know of people who have squatted. The misery they have caused is just untold. Get chap A in a green jacket to kick a door in, let everyone see and report him to the police. Before anyone can arrive chap B in a red jacket arrives at the unsecured property and puts a lock on the door along with a squatters right's notice. Job done, law cannot touch them, and the green jacket is lost in the canal. Free home, no council tax and someone deprived of their property for 6 months....then onto the next.

ScoobyWon't

I used to nick them for abstracting electricity. There are always ways and means

tony de wonderful

How about criminalising:

The way the gov isn't building social housing
The way the market is manipulated by not releasing green belt land, keeping interest rates low, using welfare to pay mortgages...all to keep prices high?
The tax breaks for BTL making rents artificially high?
Letting foreign speculaters inflate house prices so British people go homeless?

jonc

What a load bollox you're spouting!

tony de wonderful

Some don't have a housing problem?

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Just because something else is wrong, doesn't make another thing right.

Being honest, how would you feel if you owned your home, went away for however long, only to come back and somebody else had decided to move in, and it could be a costly and long process to get your it back?

jonc

Get a grip, you're talking about crimialising the government for something that they haven't done, yup that'll work.

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

This is fantastic news...tony you never seen homes from hell? It's all explained on there.

GlesgaKiss

What the f*ck are you going on about? Sometimes I really wonder.

hodgy0_2

a very good, well written article here about land and land ownership in the UK -- quite technical but does dispel some myths

http://www.newstatesman.com/life-and...land-ownership


worth a read

tony de wonderful

Well we have extremely expensive housing in this country in terms of both price and rents. It no doubt contributes to the need for people to squad...in what are often empty run down houses...contrary the SN daily mail brigade who think all squatters are no good crusties who move in to your middle class semi when you go on holiday

Scooby Soon!

not real?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14564949

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ving-home.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...atters-in.html

gpssti4

iTrader: (6)

Na, they can still pee in a policemans hat.

tony de wonderful

Two of those are daily mail articles, the first just says some women came home and people had drunk her wine.

warrenm2

Ignoring TDW "stranger to reason" rants, its about bloody time. In no other area of law can someone come along and just take another's property with so little redress. And when it's as fundamental as your own home, it really is amazing it was allowed for so long.

Homelessness and utilisation of empty houses may be a problem, but stealing someone's home from them (making them homeless in the process) cannot be claimed as an answer by anyone with more than two functional brain cells. As for cases where it is a second home being occupied, again the fundamentals of property rights are enshrined in English law for over a thousand years. You DO NOT just help yourself to some else's property. Simple as that. There is no justification (save for the case of a court ordering it). Claiming its "fair" is the excuse of an 8 year old and has no legal basis. Lock em up, then they'll have a roof over their heads!

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Tony
If you find a wallet full of money, a smartphone, or some other valuable lying around in public place, and decide to keep it for yourself without making any attempt to trace the rightful owner, you're legally guilty of theft. Squatting is basically exactly the same thing except applied to a building, so why should that be any less illegal?

tony de wonderful

Privately property isn't ensured in law for 'over a thousand years', it only really goes back to the inclosure acts of the 18th and 19th century, you are confusing private property with feudal tenure etc. land is sovereign property if the crown since the doomsday book etc but that's not the same.

Someone squatting isn't stealing anyone's home, they are just being in it. Existig civil law makes this illegal, point is should simpliy being on private land (trespass) be a criminal offence? Squatting is just a form of trespass.

If you can give me an example of squatters literally taking someone's home I'd be interested.

tony de wonderful

Good article. What myths do you think it dispels? It confirms how dysfunctional and rigged the property market it.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

If the trespasser doesn't immediately leave when asked to do so by the land owner or someone acting on their behalf, it bloody well should be, if it's not already.

tony de wonderful

Toss rights of way out of the window as well markjmd? Private property isn't just homes its vast estates and farm lands too. Some people like to enjoy the country but if trespass was the capital offence you'd like it to be we'd be confined to walking down public highways and parks only.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Last time I checked, there were very few rights of way in this country that went straight through the middle of somebody's living room, so your point is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

tony de wonderful

So why should an owner of land be able to keep people off it?

BULLITT

Just to clarify, do you let anyoneand everyone who wants to just wander around your property then? Are your garden(s) a spaghetti junction of meandering walkways with no border fences or walls?

Well?

Thought not...

tony de wonderful

I think the point is that squatting in an already occupied home was never legal anyway.

Now people can be kicked out of empty homes which seems stupid and unjust.