There's someone here in Australia doing advocacy work on behalf of renters who has just started publishing a list of vacant houses for people who need a roof over their head (1).
It is irritating a lot of people but we are in a massive housing crisis and there are credible sources saying we have a million vacant homes.
I'm a bit torn on this - my grandfather moved into aged care almost a year ago. His home is vacant up to three months at a time, then family come and visit from the US to look after him and they stay there.
We need more pressure to get truly vacant homes back into the market. There seem to be a lot owned by international investors just for sitting on housing to have it appreciate.
>There seem to be a lot owned by international investors just for sitting on housing to have it appreciate.
Having previously lived overseas in an expat hotspot / money laundering hub, I'm far more skeptical that international "investors" are buying homes for capital appreciation. They are:
- Sheltering cash (legit and or ill-gotten) from their home regime
- Laundering cash... where even a capital loss doesn't really matter. A newspaper in said former country of residence loves to report on big loss making transactions. Normies chuckle that a rich a person is "losing money." The fact is that someone is just taking a loss on cash that is now completely legitimate.
Why mention this? Because viewed through the lens of a home buyer / occupier, the market participants mentioned above pay a premium which distorts the markets. Massive capital losses are no big deal when the alternative is no capital.
The simple answer is to greatly increase the homestead exemption while raising property taxes to offset the lost revenue. Let those not living most of the year in their houses pay a premium for that luxury.
Respectfully - while that's no doubt useful for your visiting family, weighing that up vs the social costs of taking a house off the market when it could be used by a family, in the midst of what I think is the worst rental crisis in Aus history, in which many families are forced to live in vehicles, it doesn't really stack up in a utilitarian sense.
The house isn't being lived in, rental income could easily pay for temporary accommodation, or it could be shared with roommates etc.
> Respectfully - while that's no doubt useful for your visiting family, weighing that up vs the social costs of taking a house off the market when it could be used by a family, in the midst of what I think is the worst rental crisis in Aus history, in which many families are forced to live in vehicles, it doesn't really stack up in a utilitarian sense.
I don't disagree - I find it terrible that it's being kept off the market, especially as someone that is struggling with the housing crisis myself (my partner and I considered buying it, but my grandfather built it as a townhouse for him to live out retirement in and it's not really suitable for us with a young child).
There are complicating family factors for us but at the end of the day I would absolutely rather this house be on the market where someone could take advantage of it.
I think the reality is there are vastly more totally unused homes that are simply not being rented because they're just being sat on by (presumably mostly overseas investors).
what if another family member would take over soon but isn't of age yet, or is otherwise occupied but intends to take over later?
I don't think families should give up inheritances, especially not for nothing.
on the other hand there are corporations not renting out offices and apartments because appreciation will get them more money. this is what should be fought by laws, not the previous situation
It's an old law to dissuade vacant properties effectively, but people don't often use it within fair use, resulting in situations like this. It'll need to go to court, and they'll be evicted, but they'll claim it under squatters right (wrongfully.
I never got that argument. It’s my property, and I pay taxes on it. Why does it matter what I do with it? Can someone steal my car because I don’t drive it enough, or borrow my cpu to run a ddos attack?
The problem with social contracts is that they can be made without any sort of agreement by the involved parties. We gripe about EULAs but not social contracts?
You're conflating direct property theft with a very different practice. It's also a very US-centric way of thinking; the rights of the individual going above the common good. Squatting rights used to exist to protect the impoverished from absent landlords.
This is an old practice in the UK, older than the US by many centuries, and it's why many states in the US also adopted it in some measure when the union was formed. Most countries have similar laws, and people are often surprised by that fact. Squatters were a common sight across the UK because no one effectively owned land - the monarchy or the church owned it. Traditionally in an English village, there were several classes of people. At the lower end were the incomers known as borderers or squatters, who would erect a cottage or a hovel on common or waste ground to house themselves and would pay rent to the Manorial lord or would work on his demesne several days a week. The building of the cottage was generally tolerated or even sanctioned under customary rights.
Your personal property is protected. Reframe the intent. Imagine if Blackrock or Vanguard came in and bought out a county, land property and all, then just left it completely unused and untended. The place would fall to squalor. Squatters' rights mean you could continue to live and work that land without their permission. It was common in the 60s and 70s for communes to move into unoccupied mansions in London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_England_and_Wales). Many of these homes were (still are) owned by oligarchs who had no intention of living there. They own it because it's an appreciating asset that drives up house prices in the area, forcing out local families, buying up the subsequent properties, and making ghost towns. Without a vacancy tax, there's no disincentive for people to own empty houses in places where people want to live besides the squatting laws.
It should be noted, that squatting in residential property became a criminal offence in 2012. "Professional" squatting happens now in vacant commercial buildings (like Ramsay's restaurant), or on disused land. The restaurant they're occupying has been vacant since 2015 - 9 years now. Squatters can apply to become the registered owners of a property if they have occupied it continuously for 10 years, acted as owners for the whole of that time and had not previously been permitted to live there by the owner. I guess these people will suggest that they have lived there continuously for the last 9 years (they likely haven't, which is why it'll get thrown out in court) and live there for the next year to try and take ownership.
I mean to someone paying a lot of money in rent for little space, a 5k fine can be profitable in a few months. Plus 6 months free room and board? This is win/win for the homeless or soon to be
As housing becomes more and more unaffordable while more and more commercial property rests empty, we'll see this story repeating more and more in the UK and especially in London.
> "The occupation of a person’s non-residential property without their permission is not a crime in England, though police can take action if crimes are subsequently committed, including damaging the property or stealing from it."
> "...if you want to get us out you will have to issue a claim for possession in the county court or in the high court."
I worked for a top tier bank back in the day and I remember when squatters took over a neighboring building that (I think) the bank owned but was empty. It took months to get the squatters evicted, and we were reminded weekly to not disturb the squatters. I found the whole situation quite absurd.
You could equally find it absurd with current rent/property prices that a building is empty. Don't get me wrong, if I was a property owner, I'd probably argue the other way. But I'm very worried nowadays whether my kids will ever have affordable housing when they become adults.
I fail to see how taking up residence in the property without a lease or paying money to the owner isn’t stealing.
How do other business in England prevent this? When a store closes in the evening, what is stopping someone from breaking in and claiming occupancy? It doesn’t seem like society can function like this.
I normally don’t advocate for violence, but in cases like this, it seems necessary.
This is happening more in the U.S. (or at least being reported more). Getting these people out can take weeks to months using the court system. If the police aren't willing or able to evict trespassers, I suspect that people who can't afford to have their property tied up for that long will resort to . . . private eviction services.
This already happens in Spain. It is very common that the private eviction services negotiate rather than force them out. And the negotiation is basically a piece of the payment, say, they might split 2.5k/2.5k and both squatter and evictor go home happy, and the owner is 5k worse off.
They obviously often know each other, but as far as I known, they have never found them being explicit accomplices.
One I saw has the owner rent the house to someone, who then moves in with the squatters. Since the renter has rights to be there, the squatters can’t really do anything, and then eventually get annoyed and leave. Once they are gone, cancel the lease and you have the house back.
If what they're doing, as they claim, isn't illegal then let the courts decide it and set precedent for others. You can't go arbitrary advocating violence outside the bounds of the law, of it's against the law they should be kicked out, if it's not against the law let property owners get the laws updated.... I'm sure as a class they've got plenty of sway in the UK.
This goes back to old common law, and is also why the U.S. does this. There isn't a registry for renting, it's private contracts between private individuals. The only way to validate a contract dispute is via civil litigation.
It's a core example of how the foundations of western society were not built for, and failed to evolve for the population and socioeconomic problems of today.
To take this explanation a step further: the intuition that someone should have is that the police can't meaningfully do anything here, since they're not equipped (much less competent) to evaluate private agreements without an independent finding of fact from a court.
Generalizing the GP's desired outcome here would be a civil liberties nightmare: the police would either need to be informed of every private deal I make (no thanks), or would be empowered to determine on the spot whether I'm "rightfully" living where I say I do. Most people would rather have a society with occasional squatters and winding legal decisions than one where the police can snoop your lease agreement or unilaterally kick you out of your house in the middle of the night.
What’s so special about rent here that makes it so difficult for police to evaluate? Surely rent is not particularly confounding compared to, say, theft or kidnapping.
Rent is determined by a private contract, like GP said. It doesn’t even have to be a formal contract in most countries. It’s essentially a civil concern and not a criminal one, unlike theft or kidnapping.
Couldn’t this logic then be extended to anything? People could steal anything with impunity.
The police can’t prove I didn’t have an informal agreement to be the sole operator of your car, for example. For kidnapping, how can they prove I’m not just a baby sitter?
If we are going to take people at their word, why would buildings be put in a different class than people or things?
I get not wanting people with a legitimate claim to a building to be kicked out, but in the case of a building like this, wouldn’t zoning issue prevent it from being used as housing? Even if there was an agreement, I’d expect zoning laws to override it. Obviously IANAL, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense and it seemed like it should be a solved problem by now.
You're asking why there's a difference between civil and criminal law. The answer is that some things are disputes between people, and other things are codified as crimes. Kidnapping someone is a codified crime; having a dispute over a contract (including a lease or other document allowing occupancy) isn't. It could be made into a crime via legislation, but I think my other comment puts forward a decent argument for why doing so would be pretty bad for our civil liberties.
(The underlying "why" here is that calling the police for a theft or a kidnapping results in a criminal accusation, while just having a dispute over rightful ownership or occupancy is not itself criminal.)
If you misbehave in a nightclub you get dragged out of the property by bouncers, i.e. private security. Do squatters have legal protections that clubbers don't?
Isn’t nearly all personal property the result of private dealings between private individuals? We seem to be capable of, for instance, using force to prevent a bank robbery or recover money stolen in a bank robbery.
“Stand your ground” laws allow you to use violence to protect yourself and your home or property. If someone is squatting on your property and will not leave (saying “make me” or whatever) you may be allowed to use force (e.g. firearms) to remove a them. I expect the details of these laws will vary greatly from state to state and even from city to city.
Stand your ground laws (or more specifically castle doctrine when it's your own place) vary by location, particularly on that bit about property, but eeking out a "make me" is a pretty dodgy defense that your life was just put in imminent peril and you needed to shoot them to resolve it. Self defense becomes harder to justify when you're baited into being the one to escalate violence. Not saying it's never been argued just that it's not really a universal interpretation of what stand your ground laws are about.
Them saying something like "If you don't get out of here in the next 20 seconds you'll never leave" or something would be a more clear cut example. The problem is getting someone to say something silly like that is a lot harder than just getting shot at which is what makes stand your ground laws for dealing with squatters not only iffy but risky.
It is irritating a lot of people but we are in a massive housing crisis and there are credible sources saying we have a million vacant homes.
I'm a bit torn on this - my grandfather moved into aged care almost a year ago. His home is vacant up to three months at a time, then family come and visit from the US to look after him and they stay there.
We need more pressure to get truly vacant homes back into the market. There seem to be a lot owned by international investors just for sitting on housing to have it appreciate.
1. https://www.instagram.com/p/C5fsx0ZvZSY/