What do squatter eviction laws mean for landlords?
The worry of potential squatters in vacant properties has led to much window and door locking, making sure no trespassers enter your house and cause havoc. Legal loopholes have led to landlords and various interest groups voicing their discontent and pushing for change. It’s been a long time coming but maybe the new legislation will finally end some landlord woes.
In the past
For years it has been the case that squatters could appropriate a property if it had been shown that they had moved in without signs of forced entry. Previously, squatters could claim a property if they had lived there for 10 years or longer. Aside from this threat, removing squatters itself was very problematic due to the 1977 Protection from Eviction law meaning that the process has been extremely costly and time-consuming.
The new laws
New legislation has however been drawn up to protect residential landlords who own such properties. This is especially important if you have a house which is vacant for certain periods awaiting sale or letting. This is one aspect which would have pushed up the costs of unoccupied property insurance quotes.
The new anti-squatting laws make it illegal to enter any buildings in the knowledge that trespassing is taking place. Police can intervene and remove any trespassers if it is shown that they wanted to live there. This sounds great doesn’t it!
What’s really going to happen
The truth is however, that this legislation may not be that effective from a landlord’s point of view. This is because the term “squatter” is narrowly defined and doesn’t help with past tenants who haven’t paid rent or who have continued to stay on after the agreed tenancy had ended. Evicting non-paying tenants will therefore not be possible with these regulations. The difficulty in distinguishing between “holding over” tenants and squatters may well leave police with a bureaucratic dilemma thus unwilling to get involved.
None the less there has already been a 12 week prison sentence handed out to a London squatter, so although we’re unlikely to see things being as straightforward as we’d like, things are looking a little brighter. The courts should finally be on the side of the landlord.