I'd think the logical - and therefore not likely to happen - version would have been for anyone wanting immediate possession of their property to be able to demand action to remove squatters - see the largely hypothetical, Daily Mail type, scenario of 'coming home from holidays and finding your house has been taken over by a bunch of lazy students' sort of squatters. Even if you own a property that you intend to use in the near future, then you should be able to evict.

But for those properties left empty and run down, where is the harm in allowing them to be used? Yes, if they are damaged then sue for that by all means - perhaps it would have a positive consequence in that the property would be left undamaged.
BTW, I remember in one of the papers a few years back - possibly The Daily Telegraph? - a story about a squatted property in a 'good' area that had been left to rot, but whose squatters restored to good condition during their stay... Anyone else remember this?



But hey... We all know that the homeless all choose that lifestyle anyway don't we, so what's the concern? They can always go back to mummy and daddy in Ken.

One of my former colleagues has just got a job in London working for Tesco as a technical adviser. His rent is £800 per month for a room in a shared house. How can someone on a minimum wage, or worse still on the dole, afford that sort of rent? No wonder London has a large number of squats!

Been talking about this today, I guy I work with has been in the same 'squat' for nearly 10 years, no one approached him or questioned him, it's in Crouch End and it's a decent property.

Apparently there's an amount of time in which if you can prove you've lived somewhere for so long you can claim it as your own, it's looking like that may happen for him, and if it does wow a 3 bed house for free.

Oh right, I see. I disagree with you so OBVIOUSLY I don't have a clue about the subject.

Grow up, and get yourself up to date.

I find any defence of squatting to be very illogical. If I found a car not being used on a street, broke in to it and went for a scenic country drive for the day you'd quite rightly call me a car thief and expect me to arrested.

That said this law should have been accompanied by something that heavily incentivised/forced property owners not to leave their properties empty for extended periods of time.

If you disagree, then why not present an argument as to why you disagree, rather than simply telling me I'm wrong.

You have proved in the past that you haven't got the faintest idea about LVT and almost child-like, your reaction to the unknown is to pull a blanket over your head

Its a poor example though, for the example to work properly you'd have to have abandoned the car for a significant period and for there to be a serious lack of affordable cars available - so no, squatting is not the same as stealing a car.

It's not a poor example - the primary justification for squatting is that nobody else is utilising the building. Once you accept that the rest of it is just the fine print.

Maybe because any 'debate' with people like you, after 5 posts in you automatically claim to have 'handed out s on a plate', or want to murder people....

All child-like.

Usually after an extended period of time - try leaving your car on a street over an extended period of time and see how many days it takes for a "Police Aware" sticker to appear and a few days later for it to be towed and the bill sent to the registered owners address.

Now if that sort of system worked with property ...

What about my 60 berth super yacht moored in Cornwall, do i have to worry about some smelly teenage hippy types breaking the lock and taking over or is it classed as transport and not an abode?

A 60 berth yacht ?

Christ whats your day job, being the Queen ?

That's a valid point. Most large marinas, both inland and with sea access, have boats that are capable of being lived aboard. The boating season shuts down in October and doesn't start until March.

So do most caravan parks.

Its possibly why caravans parks and marinas usually have security.

In a moment of madness I nearly bought a 37 foot live-aboard motorcruiser last year. Used, of course.

I visited Abingdon, Doncaster, Lincoln and York marinas, oh and one in Cambridgeshire. I don't recall seeing any security beyond a keycard access gate.

So to get in and live on your boat they'd have to break in through the keycard gate every day , yep, thats a form of security, right tharr...

I've slept aboard a 40ft racing yacht in November during an icy spell, wouldn't like to live permanently on one, fibreglass isn't such a good insulator from the cold although when you're all sealed in below decks it can get very humid, which then gets very cold and wet when you go to bed.

And walking on a plastic deck after the first icy night of the winter isn't recommended either.

Any half-decent boat will have GPS and AIS on-board, along with any other tracking devices. On an inland waterway with a speed limit of 4mph, there's not gonna be any quick getaway. And anyone twocing a boat is guilty of theft, simple as and as such a fairly simple crime to deal with.

The value in most boats is the engine, that's why outboards are usually just chainsawed off the transom and away.

I'd consider locking my doors and windows when I go on holiday as a form of security.

If I come home to find squatters have broken in then it's my own fault for not boarding the doors and windows over presumably?

I never had you down as a Daily Mail kneejerker.

He would be free to scurry off and complain to his pet Admin that he didn't like playing with the big boys

It's hardly proper security when the fence is about 4 ft high.

Have a friend who livesaboard. I thought very much the same as you, but with a combination of heaters and de-humidifiers he is fine. Amazed we have never ended up in the water, the amount of times we have stumbled back to his boat p1ssed as farts.

I remember staying on my dad's canal cruiser with a few lads from the college RL team back in the early 90s. We'd moored up in Lancaster and hit the town, stumbling back to the cruiser about 3am, wasted. This was early February, freezing.

Unfortunately a storm had blown up while we'd been out and the cruiser was being smashed against the canal walls. After a while we panicked and decided to move it across the canal, about 50 metres up, under a couple of bridges where it was more sheltered.

So with yours truly at the helm, wasted, wearing boxers and a big woolly jumper, we started to move. Bloody thing wouldn't shift against the wind so I had to gun the engine - forgetting that my mate still wasn't on board. He took a running jump and ended up hanging with his legs in the water, clinging on to the rails from the prow, being dragged through the canal, in only his boxer shorts, which were progressively being dragged down his legs. All I could do was thrash the engine and get us across to the sheltered area and he eventually got aboard.

Guess you had to be there but it was fookin hilarious.

I wonder how many people on this thread, pontificating about taxation of assets, actually have any assets.

The Sin Bin "tax someone else to pay for my ideals" in evidence, as ever.

Most people have assets out here in the real world.

Having owned my own business for 29 years, I certainly do.

I'm just so pleased that I haven't turned into the selfish "look at me but fook you" bas'tad business owner model that many fall into.

I thought you'd gone?