The Decline of Squatting in the U.K..>?
Squatting means to unlawfully occupy an uninhabited building or settle on a piece of land.
Squatting in England and Wales was civil matter, not a criminal matter, for many decades - all through the counter-cultural days of the 1960s right up through the Criminal Justice Act days of the mid 2000s, and it used to be a vibrant, thriving, movement, championed by socialists and anarchists as an effective way for those on low incomes to meet one of their basic needs, for free!
However, in 2012 Squatting was technically criminalised by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012, section 144 of the LASPO made it a criminal offence to trespass in residential properties with the intention of living there.
It is probably unsurprising, therefore, that the numbers of people squatting in the UK have decreased over time.
- In 1979 there were an estimated 50 000 squatters
- In 2013, the latest Ministry of Justice estimate, put the numbers at 20 000, in England and Wales
There have also been a few cases in which people have been sent to jail for squatting, the maximum sentence being 6 months, and this has no doubt had something of a deterrence effect.
It’s difficult to say exactly how many people squat in the UK today given that squatters don’t generally want to draw attention to themselves. Certainly residential squats, being illegal, are off the radar, but there’s also scant information on the more resistance style squats of non-residential buildings.
Back in the 2010s, there were plenty of squats opened up by activist groups such as UK Uncut, Climate Camp, Reclaim the Fields, and The Transition Network. You would have needed a certain amount of subcultural capital to fit into these networks, but if you could embed yourself comfortably into that sort of thing, then the payback was free accommodation, and probably food too.
However, today the examples of this kind of thing are scant, definitely fewer than was the case 7 years ago when I was last digging around for information on squatting.
I managed to find the following:
- From Freedom News A day of action opening up squats around the country on National Housing Day, from June this year.
- Via a moderately active FaceBook group, an example of a squat in Croydon, South London, near where I used to teach, but that’s been under siege recently.
- From 2022 some activists were opening up Russian Oligarch's mansions suggesting we should use these to house Ukrainian Refugees. I quite like this idea!
- The Squatters' Advisory Service has a tidy blog, but the last entry was in 2022, and their links page is down to under a dozen. This used to be my go-to for info about squatting, but it's thinned out. This used to be thriving! Their latest handbook was updated in 2016, seven years ago!
It would seem, sadly, there is little going on. The Squatting movement is a lot quieter than it used to be.
NB this isn't because of a decline of homelessness, there are 270K homeless people currently and an equivalent number of long term empty properties - 260K!
Radio silence or a movement disappearing…?
Most of the links to squats I could find were specifically linked to political activism, NOT the kind of quiet squats where people are just living. However given that the later are illegal, this doesn't surprise me.
Squatters who are just living want to keep off the radar, and the UK government has no interest in counting the numbers either, the last serious attempt having been made over a decade ago now.
How to Squat…
Just in case you wanted to...!
There are a few things you need to get right in order squat a property for any length of time –The squatter’s advisory service recommend the following –
You need to make sure you do not commit criminal damage to get into the property, and repair any such damage that someone else has done immediately after you take up occupation.
Always make sure someone is in the property, because if the property is vacant you can be evicted.
You should contact the utilities providers asap to prove that you intend to pay.
When the police turn up, do not give them entry, talk to them through the door, and finally research who the owner is so you know who you are up against when you go to court, and don’t expect them to be too happy about the fact that you’re squatting their property.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Texas has laws of adverse possession that give squatters the legal right to keep a property under certain circumstances. It's a bit of a process.
We have the same but you have to have been in there for a decade!
Given the crisis in housing in this country it is not helpful to criminalise people who just want a roof over them. The government seem more concerned with demonising the needy than with solving the problems. You have to hope Labour have a plan. I know plenty of people who have given up on Starmer.
I'm just not that optimistic!
The thought of a squatter being confused as to why the owner is mad gave me a chuckle. I too got caught up with doing some research on the same topic some years back. I don't remember much of the info I searched but I do remember some youtube clips. One had to do with a squatter taking over a house that was repossessed by a bank. The bank eventually went under and the house was just sitting there unoccupied until a squatter decided the house was going to be theirs. I'm after forgetting the outcome of that, I might have to do some digging to see if I can find what my memory is recalling.
10 years and it's yours, not very many of those cases mind!