Squatting Now a Crime

It's now a crime to squat in a residential building.

The statutory instrument formally enacting section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into effect on 1 September 2012, and has been well publicised in the media.

The new law is summarised in this Ministry of Justice Circular.

A person will commit the new offence if:

·         they are in a residential building as a trespasser having entered it as such;

·         they know or ought to know they are a trespasser; and

·         they are living in the building or intend to live there for any period

Anyone living in a residential building at that date, even if they entered before 1 September 2012, will be committing a criminal offence if they originally went in without permission, creating overnight a new category of criminals.

The new offence doesn't apply to commercial buildings.

Nor does it apply to someone who entered a building with the permission of the property owner.

So if a legitimate tenant subsequently falls behind with rental payments or decides to withhold rent, they won't be a trespasser for the purposes of this offence – a property owner must follow established eviction processes through the courts if they want to regain possession in these circumstances.

A glance at some online forums suggests a lot of people don't realise this. 

I wonder if the police will now have to deal with angry landlords wanting them to arrest tenants who have got into arrears?

To qualify as a “residential building”, it must be a structure or part of a structure which has been designed or adapted for use as a place to live before the time of entry.

A trespasser who modifies a non-residential building by placing bedding or personal effects in it won’t be committing this offence.

There may well be problems of definition when it comes to mixed-use property.

There's a maximum penalty of 6 months imprisonment, a fine, or both.

Further explanation of the new law is given in the MOJ Circular.

There's been a great deal of comment on this new law, both for and against.

For example in the Telegraph, the housing charity, Crisis warns the new law will target the vulnerable, and the Law Society Gazette reports many lawyers berating the new law as “headline-grabbing” and unnecessary, although as you can see from the comments section that follow the report, many other people think the new law is both welcome and overdue.

There's an interesting piece on Property 118 about some of the problems landlords might still face in dealing with squatters and comment from a different perspective on Inside Housing.

The fact that the new offence doesn’t apply to commercial buildings has inevitably led many owners of vacant commercial property to fear their buildings will now be targeted by squatters.

Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, even went so far as to suggest to Property Week (£) that the increased threat of squatting in commercial properties will leave some land owners with no choice but to demolish their buildings. Here she is too talking to Sky News.

Finally, there's a thoughtful piece in the Independent , which discusses some of the problems there may be in enforcing the new law.

Update 27 September 2012

Here is a useful summary and comment from David Smith of Anthony Gold solicitors.