Firstly, I'm not sure if this is an English term, so I will briefly explain what a squatter is. A squatter is somebody who occupies an empty house and lives in it illegally, in I(n England and Wales they have some rights - you can't cut off their water supply, and if they live there for 12 years without the owners trying to evict them, they legally own the house. In Scotland it is completely illegal.
For a squatter to have rights they have to have done the following:
1.Enter the house without causing damage, doing so is criminal damage and it becomes a criminal rather than civil offence.
2. Enter and leave the property via a lockable entry that only they have the key to.
I would also add at this point that an owner breaking into their own house, if there's a squatter in there is illegal. If you take their stuff out, you can be arrested for burglary.
Ok, so now for the discussion. Taking it at absolute face value, squatting is a bad thing. You are essentially stealing someone's house, and whether they live in it or not, it is still wrong. If someone owned 2 cars and you stole one of them, it is not a defence to say "but they have 2, and I don't have any", but with houses, apparently you can.
But if we look at the argument a little deeper, then the picture isn't as black and white. There are 135,000 empty homes in North West England alone. When you factor in the rest of the country, you are probably looking at a million or so. I'm sure in most developed countries there will be a similar amount.
Squatters use these empty homes, thus taking themselves off the streets, which is surely a good thing. In addition, squatters may also take themselves out of the housing queue and more people will be able to get council houses.
However, since moving to London I have realise two things. Firstly, most homeless people live in doorways, or just on some boxes in the street. For the first couple of years I was here I thought that maybe squatters were just a relic of the 60s and nobody really did it anymore, but then I realised the truth, squatters do exist, but not in the way they are portrayed.
Homeless people do not have the money or motivation to have legal advice that can allow them to squat. The absolute embarrassment of having to stand in a courtroom knowing that you are illegally living in the person accusing you's house is also a factor I think. Finally, squates require co-operation because someone has to be there al of the time to stop the owners breaking in and changing the locks. If you've ever met homeless people or people that used to be, you would know that they rarely trust anyone, for obvious reasons.
So who's squatting? In my experience they are generally ex-private school art students being put through university by their parents and spending their loan money on "finding themselves" using special K and acid. I would like to point out that I said "in my experience", and this is a scope of about 50 squatters who I am aware of, if this is a minority, then tell me, but the people who were squatting in that mansion on Mayfair looked like they fit into this category.
Bit of a long winded argument, and I've tried to represent two sides of the coin, but what do you think about squatters (or whatever your local term is)?
For a squatter to have rights they have to have done the following:
1.Enter the house without causing damage, doing so is criminal damage and it becomes a criminal rather than civil offence.
2. Enter and leave the property via a lockable entry that only they have the key to.
I would also add at this point that an owner breaking into their own house, if there's a squatter in there is illegal. If you take their stuff out, you can be arrested for burglary.
Ok, so now for the discussion. Taking it at absolute face value, squatting is a bad thing. You are essentially stealing someone's house, and whether they live in it or not, it is still wrong. If someone owned 2 cars and you stole one of them, it is not a defence to say "but they have 2, and I don't have any", but with houses, apparently you can.
But if we look at the argument a little deeper, then the picture isn't as black and white. There are 135,000 empty homes in North West England alone. When you factor in the rest of the country, you are probably looking at a million or so. I'm sure in most developed countries there will be a similar amount.
Squatters use these empty homes, thus taking themselves off the streets, which is surely a good thing. In addition, squatters may also take themselves out of the housing queue and more people will be able to get council houses.
However, since moving to London I have realise two things. Firstly, most homeless people live in doorways, or just on some boxes in the street. For the first couple of years I was here I thought that maybe squatters were just a relic of the 60s and nobody really did it anymore, but then I realised the truth, squatters do exist, but not in the way they are portrayed.
Homeless people do not have the money or motivation to have legal advice that can allow them to squat. The absolute embarrassment of having to stand in a courtroom knowing that you are illegally living in the person accusing you's house is also a factor I think. Finally, squates require co-operation because someone has to be there al of the time to stop the owners breaking in and changing the locks. If you've ever met homeless people or people that used to be, you would know that they rarely trust anyone, for obvious reasons.
So who's squatting? In my experience they are generally ex-private school art students being put through university by their parents and spending their loan money on "finding themselves" using special K and acid. I would like to point out that I said "in my experience", and this is a scope of about 50 squatters who I am aware of, if this is a minority, then tell me, but the people who were squatting in that mansion on Mayfair looked like they fit into this category.
Bit of a long winded argument, and I've tried to represent two sides of the coin, but what do you think about squatters (or whatever your local term is)?
