Handing over our petition to criminalise squatting
Regular readers will be aware of our campaign to criminalise squatting. In April, we presented our initial petition to 10 Downing Street calling for squatting to be criminalised.
Yesterday, the campaign took a big step forward, with the government committing to criminalise squatting as part of the new Justice Bill. It is great that everyone is now talking about squatting and seeing how it affects property owners. However, there is still a very long way to go.
Before any plans to fully criminalise squatting become an act of law, there will be consultations to discuss ideas about how squatting should be criminalised. Often, brazen proposals go through an undressing in these stages to try and get to a regime that stakeholders are satisfied with.
It is for this reason that it is so important to keep the pressure on decision makers in Westminster to ensure that squatting is criminalised in a way that is satisfactory to property owners – the ones who are the victims of squatting.
We don’t want any ridiculous law that overly burdens homeowners with red tape and administration when trying to get rid of squatters. What we do want is an efficient regime for law enforcement to evict squatters quickly and at minimal cost.
That is why we are keeping our Criminalise Squatting petition open until squatting is officially a criminal offence. If you have not signed the petition yet, please do so. And, encourage others to as well.
