Should we feel sorry for squatters?

 

Imagine you come home from holiday only to find your home occupied by strangers. As if this wasn't bad enough - the intruders might have a legal right to stay.

Squatters is the term for people occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space that they don't own or rent. According to author Robert Neuwirth, there are one billion squatters around the world, and the UK alone is estimated to have around 25,000 squatters.

Squatting is regarded as a civil law, and only if forced entry can be proved will it be viewed as a criminal matter. And only then do the police have the authority to remove the occupants.

If the squatters legally occupies the house it's up to the owner to prove in court that they have a right to live in the property and that the squatters don't.

In addition, the squatters can claim there is not sufficient proof or that the proper legal steps have not been taken.

Dedicated to help squatters

In London, a group called the Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) runs a volunteer service helping squatters and publishes The Squatters' Handbook.

In the handbook's chapter Getting in you can read the following: "Many empty properties can be walked into as they have become insecure through vandalism. You do not want to commit criminal damage and the police may try to accuse you of this, but they would only be able to do anything if there were witnesses". 

It also gives the advice: "Once you are in, you should change the locks or secure every door and other way in so that you control entry and are physically, as well as legally, protected. 

If the police turns up The Squatters Handbooks calms you by saying: "The police should know that squatting is a civil matter and that squatters have the same rights to protection as anyone else. Don't open the door to them".


Necessity or mockery

Do we have a serious loop hole in the law or should we help people in need of a home when the space of empty buildings are being wasted? 

Squatting can often be a result of necessity, but it’s sometimes carried out as political statement.

Desperate homeless people that occupy deserted office buildings is one thing.

However, anarchists that cunningly take over an apartment when the owners are temporary away and laugh in their face when they return, knowing their legal rights, don't deserve the same sympathy.