The HATED Subculture of "Squatters"

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We have squatters' rights laws here in America also and we've also experienced issues with squatters breaking into residential areas and the owners of said housing having to spend time and money in the court system to get them out. Especially after the covid pandemic happened. It's 1 thing if the chronically homeless move into an obviously long abandoned commercial space but it's another thing to break into another persons home and refuse to leave.

I know a group of squatters that occupied a pub for a while and they actually worked to fix the place up

Squatter in London in the late 90s here. We only ever squatted municipal council buildings which had either been condemned or redesignated. Never private homes. The way we could tell was simply the Cytex over the windows, but we always checked with Council to make sure. We had lawyers on our side, and an army of young, motivated idealists to organize with. We never robbed or looted anything, in fact we would fix up the apartments very nicely. The problem as we saw it was mismanagement of housing resources on a massive scale, and while tens of thousands went homeless the Council had hundreds of thousands of perfectly usable, empty flats. So we took them, and moved in as many people as we could. All you ever saw on the news though, was a never ending stream of negative stories about the few exceptions and the tiny minority of squatters who had taken private homes over... Go figure. On the whole, the squatters I met were some of the most creative, helpful people I have known in my life, and as a landlord now, I am forever indebted to that beautiful subculture. Solidarity

it blows my mind that someone can legally steal your home

I was a squatter in Borough, Sarf London, before it became 'posh' There were dozens of us, mostly European folk in their 20's and lil ole 17yo me. We squatted empty council flats, paid our utility bills, worked and looked after 'our' homes. I even went to The Law Courts, armed with information and knowledge of our rights from Snow, the squatters group in Old Kent Rd. And 18yo, won my case. I would never have squatted someone's lived in home though. Great time of my misspent youth

If it takes you over 10 years to discover there are squatters, that is kind of on you.

Squatter's Rights are still a thing in most US states, and it's still very much a thing over here. My opinion on it is, given the circumstances and whether it's an abandoned building or not, or if you were wrongly evicted from a house you're renting or not, or any number of other reasons, is it depends. It depends on if it's right or wrong. Breaking into someone's house while they're on vacation/holiday and taking it over, pushing squatter's rights? Hell no. You were paying your rent on time in full, but suddenly evicted? Hell yeah! Take the landlord to court while squatting in the house you paid rent on. With holding rent due to the landlord breaking lease and refusing to rectify the problem, go for it. Stop paying rent and push squatter's rights, then take the landlord to court. Fully legal in my state, I don't know about any other state. Get kicked out of your house, have nowhere to go, break into someone's house while their gone? No. Homeless looking for a safe and sheltered place, find an abandoned building, break in and live there? Go for it. No one else is using it, it's just taking up space and costing the city money... with no use.

I feel that if a house sits vacant for give or take a decade and a squatter comes along finds it, lives there not bothering anyone then i see no issue

Squatting makes sense, although I am a bit hesitant of it being used on someone’s first, and only, home. It makes sense for the squatter to gain control over abandoned buildings , apartments, and some rich guys 50th home, but it is ridiculous for it to apply to someone else’s primary residence(s).

You can still claim land through adverse possession! Some land is unregistered, and previous owners have died with no family...find this land, look after it as if it was your own for 10 years documenting your upkeep over that decade, then apply for adverse possession - it gives the current owner 2 years to come forward and if they don't the land legally becomes yours!

I am a current active squatter living in a commercial building in England and have been squatting since I discovered it was legal to do so in 2016, and i dont think i would look back. There are apparently more than 1.000.000 empty buildings in the UK so I know I can find long term empty buildings that arent going to be regenerated and feel okay about claimimg it as mine/our own.

This man would even call pick pocketers, burglars, and hitmen a subculture

The recent "police bill" has changed trespass from a civil infraction to a criminal offence. The wording defining trespass is very broad, it can even include parking on the public highway.

"officer I came to my house and was violently assaulted by someone robbing me. He'd corroborate my story but he can't considering he has 5 buckshot holes in his chest"

I'm a law student from Canada, which has the same legal origins for "squatter's rights" though seemingly different laws. This comes up a lot. Merely breaking in to mess with people's stuff is clearly a cruel and unacceptable thing to do, but it is also unethical to impoverish poor people with insane house prices caused by investment properties, so a lot of radical young lawyers are using these historic laws and the overburdened housing tribunal (there is a special tribunal) to try and protect struggling renters. There is also an increasing public sentiment against investment properties (and a few weaksauce laws with the same intent), which I think is the real answer. I hope there will be much stronger laws against investment property (for example 10% tax on total asset value for residential buildings which are not registered as primary residences). That will free up housing for people while making sure that no one loses their home/cherished possesions to vandals.

I remember when squatting was cool among certain sub sect of people I knew (mostly upper middle class kids, slumming it TBH) I could never understand why they'd want to squat TBH, but as I got older it all came into view. Basically I was forced to squat because I had nowhere to live and this put me into contact with people that squatted by choice. I lived in a big house with subsidence with some of them at one point that we called "the slanty shanti" was some good times TBF though.

Squatters rights cause many squatter fights

I was a squatter for about 6 months from 17-18 years old in the UK around 2013-14…. The best of times and the worst of times, but would do it all again. We weren’t too extreme either with radical ideology, just a bunch of good souls trying to survive. I was just kicked out of home and could very easily have ended up meeting the wrong people. So, forever thankful to the tribe that saved me and made me who I am today

I was a Squatter in Lower East Side, NYC for 17.5 years. I left NYC in 1998, as laws changed against us. The mid 90's is when NYC shifted toward the gentrifyand hyper expensive NYC that we sadly have today. So cops evicted, killed and arrested many of us, and turned the laws against squatters. We had some intense stand offs with the authorities. However, sadly NYC only belongs to the rich nowadays. The 80's & early 90's were amazing in NYC. The squatter community definitely shaped me in so many positive ways. BTW, all the buildings that we squatted have been absolutely abandoned for many years, mostly for decades. So we would collaborate to turn them into fully functional residential homes for the homeless. The neighbors loved us, as we actually made the neighborhood safer and gave many families stable homes and a community. Many of us were in fields, such as construction, electrical, plumbing and such. Others would learn these skills as we all worked together to make these blighted buildings liveable. We also had benefit shows to get funds for supplies.. Those were the best days for me.