Birmingham Law Centre Blog

By Lloyd Burton

An article taken from the November/December issue of The Adviser Journal, by Housing Solicitor Mark Robinson and entitled “Forgive Not Our Trespassers”, provides an interesting synopsis of new laws, in force from 1 September 2012 which seeks to prohibit squatting, and arguably heralds a return to the bygone days of vagrancy laws, which imprisoned and fined the homeless.

The legislation is governed by Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, although there are also additional revisions to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act - Subsection (8) amends Section 17, to enhance police powers to access properties to clear squatters from residential dwellings.

There are some loopholes to the legislation - for example, S.144 only applies to squatters who were trespassers at the time of entry to a residential dwelling - but not when a guest of an occupier.

Moreover, S.144 does not apply to commercial properties at all, and it does not matter if the squatters adapt the property for residential use after accessing a commercial dwelling.

Robinson also notes that whilst police certainly do have enhanced power of entry to residential dwellings which are being used as squats, they are only permitted to remove those squatters living within the dwelling, but not their guests, potentially making it difficult to totally clear squatted residential dwellings legally.

However, S.144 does state that offenders apprehended squatting in a residential dwelling are liable to conviction of imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks, or a fine not exceeding Level Five on the standard scale (or both).

Police do not have powers of entry under S.144 to enter and evict people who are squatting commercial dwellings, and as a consequence Robinson makes the point that S.144 is likely to result in an increase in squatting in commercial dwellings generally.

In our experience, individuals have traditionally squatted as a desperate alternative to street homelessness, due to life course circumstance and poverty, doubtless exacerbated by the acute housing shortage.

It is perhaps regrettable that the law was not amended to enable the courts to expedite eviction procedures against squatters, possibly giving those squatting a short notice period to vacate a respective dwelling or face eviction by the police, rather than to simply criminalise individuals for squatting, and fining and/or potentially sending them to prison for nigh on a year.

This is especially the case when squatting is taken in context with the recession, the dismantling of the welfare state, and the huge surge in unemployment and associated homelessness.