Today (1/9/12) the new squatters law comes into force.
“At last!” landlords up and down the country are saying – “at last I can get the police in and get rid of those pesky squatters!”
Except …
It was something the police had power to do anyway – so presumably the only reason for this new law is that they never did it!
Considering to it be a ‘civil matter’. Beneath the dignity of a police offer to deal with, not being ‘proper crime’ like burglary or murder, but something inferior.
Real police don’t do civil
So the $164,000 dollar question is – will the police do anything about squatters NOW? Or will they continue to brush it off as a ‘civil matter’. Will having the offence enshrined in s144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act 2012 make it into a proper crime?
Which then begs the question, are we going to have to keep making new laws about offences which the police don’t want to deal with, until they finally deign to do their job? It seems, to say the least, a bit wasteful.
Not getting it right
So maybe we should have a new act about unlawful eviction? Because the Police certainly don’t seem to do much about that. (And it IS a criminal offence – Protection from Eviction Act 1977)
Regularly (so the stories say) obliging Police Officers are helping landlords move their hapless tenants possessions out, without benefit of a court possession order (you don’t believe me? Click here).
Maybe its because ‘Protection from Eviction Act’ sounds a bit wishy washy . It was a namby pamby leftie act after all. There are no macho words like ‘punishment’ or ‘offenders’ in the title. So it can’t be a proper crime can it?
So the Police will help landlords evict tenants illegally but (up to now) won’t help landlords evict squatters under the law.
Some people might say that just shows the Police could do with a bit of legal training. (Although heaven forfend, that would involve paying out money to trainers – quick, lets pass another Act instead …)
Don’t hold your breath
Going back to squatting – landlords may be jumping up and down with glee but others are feeling a bit more cynical about it all. David Lawrenson for example thinks that the squatters will just go out and a fake a tenancy agreement.
Which of course they may, now he’s told them how to do it.
I have to say that I have doubts as to whether this act will do what is intended. My fear is that it will have a more sinister effect: – encouraging landlords to call the police to evict proper tenants on the basis that they have not paid the rent – we already know that the Police like helping landlords evict tenants (see above).
The answer?
However if it does have the desired effect, then we know what to do if other acts don’t work now don’t we? Just pass another act re-stating the same thing but with a different and more forceful title.
In the meantime, if the Police for some unaccountable reason won’t come out and evict your squatters – the County Court eviction process is still there and reasonably efficient.
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PS For the avoidance of doubt – I do NOT support squatting in people’s homes! I think the Police should have been evicting squatters under the old law – which would have saved people a lot of trouble.
Great blog Tessa and I love that Newsletter plugin you are using. It will be interesting to see how they react. I’ve heard that Police have no directive to act from Home Office, APCO or Ministry of Justice yet.
I was on BBC News 24 last night talking about the criminalisation of squatting. Clearly there is a lot of confusion about what the new law means – more here >>> http://www.property118.com/index.php/squatters-rights-whats-not-changed/31608/
I’ve made my views about this new law clear elsewhere. In fact just about everywhere, including fielding viewers ‘comments’ live on TV on Daybreak on 31 August, being called a plonker in comments to a Law Gazette article and someone responding to a Guardian piece by threatening to park their caravan in my garden (I haven’t got a garden).
But some of the responses by people calling themselves landlords to news items yesterday makes me think that your fear that some landlords will be calling the police on ‘squatters’ who are actually tenants in rent arrears is very likely to be realised.
These ‘landlords’ appeared to believe that a tenant who doesn’t pay all the rent on time is a) a squatter and b) committing an offence under the new law by staying in the property.
If people act on this, things are going to get messy for a while…
I despair of the police in housing matters. The very words ‘Landlord and tenant’ when put together causes an iron curtain to come down.
Can you believe 2 weeks ago I had a 60 year old tenant illegally evicted by an agent and when he went to the office to inquire why, he was punched in the face and when he went to the police to report it they told him it was a civil matter. Even the assault did nothing to reduce the power of the 2 magic words.
I wonder if ‘Squatter’ will raise a bit more ire in them.
And as I’ve written elsewhere,landlords are crying out in salvation across the land, completely disinterested with the notion that it is actually a law to prevent lawful protests, evidenced by Mr Pickles 3 days ago when he encouraged a war on protesters just before the new Act came in.
Not to mention the costs of legal action from prosecution which some estimates will run at over £790 million +, helpfully wiping out the proposed £350 million pounds the LASPO bill is supposed to save AND add to that the costs of having to deal with thousands more new homeless people.
The shortsightedness of it beggars belief but squatters, like the unemployed and the poor ave always been easy targets to build a scapegoat out of.
Remember Suzy Butler? The landlord in a tenant? Even the press couldnt tell the difference between a tenant and a squatter and from posts I am seeing cropping up on other websites most landlords cant understand the legal difference either.
Now……back to my tea and biscuits
Hehe Ben, “Remember Suzy Butler? The landlord in a tenant?” that reads like the tenant ate the landlord (beats tea and biscuits I suppose). I realise you meant tent but it raised a smile here!
AND…. tea to one side. When called to a property to deal with a squatter what earth shattering piece of evidence will the police be using before deciding if a person is a squatter or not? Because the tenant owes rent? Because the notice seeking possession has expired? because their partner, the sole tenant, has left? Because the landlords says they are squatting?
Being heartily sick of having the police unlawfully evicting people we offered them training but they said they arent interested, so we as an organisation are going to start lodging complaints with the PCC until they give in. I’ll be doing it with every fake squatter case I come across too
Excellent idea with the PCC! That should be spread about. Every TRO or housing advisor should do the same.
I remember Ms Butler and her remarkably tidy tent very well ;-)
I’ve been talking to a lot of journos over the last 3 days. Not one of them knew this law did not apply to ‘former’ tenants, or even that a tenancy continues until court order. They were quite startled by the idea. Now if Shapps wanted to turn his undoubted genius for publicity to a good end…
I have no confidence that the “it’s a civil matter” act will be dropped as a result of this. A colleague of mine had a case recently where he had to get an IPO against a gang of Romanians who were demanding money to leave someone’s only or principal home where the Police used the “it’s a civil matter” angle and even when called on to enforce the IPO the officers present tried that angle.
Needless to say a complaint followed in short order.
‘Twouldn’t surprise me about Police being cajoled into helping with illegal evictions on this over arrears. Probably because the officer will have a landlord screaming blue murder in one ear, a tenant screaming in the other, and they’ll have a vague recollection from the news of squatting being illegal, and they’ll make the decision to side with the landlord. Also because if they did nothing and said it was a civil matter (which here it actually is), one of them would thump the other and then there’d be a potential complaint for failing to defuse a violent situation.
The alternative – to nick them both for breach of the peace and then sort it out at the station – would engender too much paperwork.
Needless to say, I’ve got my N16s and N16As all sharpened and ready to go in anticipation.
Actually, an illegal eviction for rent arrears isn’t a civil matter! S.1 PEA – Criminal offence. In those circumstances, the police are not only going to have to not get the trespass law wrong, but actually get the PEA right. Odds are not good…
If it were an actual illegal eviction or harassment, yes. If just an argument over rent arrears, then a civil matter. Sorry. Brainfart on my behalf there.
@Sally haha I see what you mean. Thats what happens when you type with your dander up.
@Nearlylegal Not only was her tent mysteriously tidy it wasnt secured to the ground with guy ropes either I recall.
On the matter of complaints, my office will be lodging at least one a week, often more so pervasive is the problem.
Last week we had woman who married man and moved into his sole tenancy. He became violent and she obtained an ouster injunction to remove him and protect herself. Agent said no right to be there as her name not on the agreement, called the cops who promptly handcuffed her in front of her 3 kids and removed her from the property.
My logic with the complaints is that if the PCC keeps getting them they are going to have to do something about. especially when after 6 months we register an FOI request asking how many complaints of police involvement in illegal evictions they have had. Personally I would be happy if they just accepted our offer of free training which is all I really want. We did it for years in the 1990s and the problem became non existent, sometimes the cops even used their truncheons to break people back in under Section 6.
@Ben – as you are already massively under resourced, how would you manage to find the extra resources required to provide the Police with free training?
When we did it before it entailed just 2 hours very 6 weeks. New probationers come through and we grabbed them while they were still warm.
It isnt massive training, just letting them know about criminal offences. What they liked is I always emphasised that there were TROs in the council who could handle the cases and to warn parties in the dispute and get onto us in the morning.
Working this way they would fax a report over to us and usually copies of their IRB entries (Incident report books). Also because we had trained them all we were on first name terms and could call them when we were in trouble too.
Just letting them know that harassment and illegal eviction are criminal offences and that they could call us for help was enough to completely turn things around.
I dont have a go at the police to be an anarchist haha I appreciate it is simply ignorance and canteen speak logic passed on by older officers who themselves didnt know the law. Whenever I have been joint doorstepping with them and they understand the law they are very helpful.
They understand the importance of law but like many landlords they just dont know the laws are there
I live in London and squatters are a particular problem here. They’re privileges being removed in favour of landlords can only mean a good thing for landlords. Let justice be done!
I assume I am missing the point but even allowing for the daftness of all political parties I assume there is a reason for making squatting a criminal offence – quite rightly in my view as it is simply property theft – is to increase the sanctions?
Higher fine and/or prison?
I never cease to be amazed at squatter’s justifications for taking what does not belong to them. If they have an appointment across town but no bus fare and too far to walk it is OK for them to take the nearest car is it because it is not being used?