Tresspass/Illegal Camping and squatting laws

Anyone know what they are nowadays? Last time I did any squatting was before the criminal justice act came in.

Could I just take my campervan into a park/forest and claim squatters rights and wait to be evicted ... or is there more to it than that?

 

I think the police would quite likely hit you with something hard, charge you with aggravated tresspass and impound your vehicule!

There still are sites around the country but they don't tend to stay very long. Even travellers who buy their own land are getting turfed off.

Although I think squatters still have rights, the new police powers which keep miraculously appearing make it very difficult to count on them!

 

Just found this...​

Lifestyle choice or emergency housing? TheSite looks at the ins and outs of squatting.

Squatting has been with us for many hundreds of years. The earliest cases can be traced back to 1381 when the Forcible Entry Act was passed. Following the end of the First and Second World Wars, some soldiers were forced to live in empty or derelict properties due to lack of decent housing.

Since the 1960s onwards squatting has been on the increase, with co-operatives and organisations springing up attracting people from all ages and backgrounds. In fact one of the better known squatting co-ops was a cluster of streets in the London Fields area of East London, which contained artists, the unemployed, students and even office workers living a nine to five lifestyle.


The number one squatting rule, though, is to enter only empty and unused properties. Long gone are the days when holidaymakers would return home from a fortnight in the sun to find their homes had been taken over. These days it's more likely to be an empty and abandoned office block or warehouse.

For and against

The Advisory Service for Squatters offers legal and practical advice for anyone who may want to (or needs to) squat. They say: "According to the Empty Homes Agency there were 804,000 empty homes in the UK in April 1998. There is enough empty property other than homes, e.g. offices, to be converted into the equivalent of 700,000 homes. The number of squatters has been estimated recently to be as high as 30,000 (in the Guardian) but a more realistic estimate would be a little under 20,000 very few of whom are outside England and Wales, and most of those are in London."

Hackney Council, which has had well-publicised battles with squatters in the past, had this to say on the subject: "It's a fallacy that Hackney council has lots of squatted premises anymore. These days we have very few. If we do we move very quickly to sort the problem out. We have a policy of regenerating empty properties."

What you can and can't do:

• Squatting is not strictly speaking a criminal offence, it is a civil offence against the landlord/owner of the property which to all intents and purposes means that it is an unlawful practice but not illegal.
• You can be convicted of a criminal offence if you have caused damage to the property by gaining entry, covered under the Criminal Justice Act 1994.
• The Landlord/ owners are well within their rights to evict squatters but they must go to a civil court in order to gain a possession order.
• Squatters do have limited rights. A landlord cannot remove you by violent or forced means, only through the legal process.
• Under squatters rights, if a property has been lived in for 12 years then it effectively becomes the property of the squatters.

For further information contact:

Advisory Service for Squatters call: 020 7359 8814

Release, emergency legal advice line: 020 7729 9904 or 020 7603 8654

Travellers Advice Team call: 0468 316 755


This is a little out of date!

 

I seem to remember that the original ban on the Stonehenge festival had a lot to do with the 12 year ownership rule. 1984 or 1985 would have been the 12th year that there had been convoy squatting on the land and the National Trust were all too aware of this.

It's more open air stuff I'm thiniking of; someone told me that if you put a washing line up it gave you more rights.

 

I seem to recall the same, something about the festival becoming an 'institution', but the convoy would've had to of had people on a permenant site everyday of the year for twelve years which we didn't.
So I'm not too clear which was myth and which was actually law.

In terms of putting a washing line up giving you more rights....I wish it was so!

 

aggravated tresspass? Man thats sounds rough... How the hell would you be aggravated about it? I know I've squatted a bunch of times but I don't know if I've ever been aggravated about it.

 

Aggravated Trespass. A quick summary and copy of the law relating to aggravated trespass



Many of the briefings on cases relating to “aggravated trespass” refer to “s.68” and “s.69.” The extract at the end of this briefing from the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJPOA) explains in detail what these sections relate to. Definitions in brief


Briefly, “aggravated trespass” involves doing the following:

•trespassing on land in the open air;

•in relation to lawful activity being carried out on that or adjacent land in the open air;

•does something there, intending to;

•intimidate people from engaging in that activity, or disrupt or obstruct the activity.

There are two offences relating to aggravated trespass:

•A s.68 offence means committing aggravated trespass itself. •A s.69 offence means ignoring the directions of a policeman to leave land, when he/she believes that you are committing or about to commit aggravated trespass.




Trespass itself isn't a criminal offence it's a civil wrong. The police though have been able to use this Aggrevated twat of a law on anybody they choose even more so today with Blunketts extra fabulous fuckwittery. So whether your a hunt sab or a happy camper you can in effect be charged with this if the police don't like the look of you......that means US lot!

 

So to put it bluntly, we're fucked

 

I think it's a case of certain areas you are ok and others it isn't! There are still sites that pop up around where I live in Norwich, sometimes they last days sometimes weeks but that's a little rarer these days.

I know there are a few sites on the south coast that have been going for more than a year!

I think it's a case of seeing what you can get away with!


Check this link out from the Travellers School Trust if you really want to get pissed off!

http://www.travellersschool.plus.com/tsc-campaigns.html

 

That's nasty

 

my mates steve and lee have been living on some land in a yurt and a little caravan for quite some time.. they asked the farmer and he said it was cool.. so iguess if you just ask and you have the permission of the land owner its cool.. you would be suprised how accomodating some people are as long as you dont cuase any damage and you greet them with a smile... but about the whole squatting thing.. i dont really know

 

Well, the criminal justice act pretty much fucks you over what ever you want to do down this line.

There are discussions in parliament about councils making more provisions for travellers free sites....

But that makes no odds if you fancy crashing somewhere random for the evening i guess!

Love Clairexxx

 

In the US if you go 20 years without interuption (asked to leave) you can have certain rights to the land. But not fee simple ownership. Just usage rights.

 

Except that land owners can face prosecution for allowing you to camp on their land. And while it may sound unlikely, I have known it to happen. Depends on who notices you, how much of a stink they kick up, and how inclined the authorities are to make your life difficult.

 

Colchester squat evicted after 4 days!

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/09/297566.html

 

You know we were just talking about the squat scene today

It seems to be pretty active still, despite the CJA etc

Mercy was even saying they have websites etc... infact I found a few myself

Maybe we should support them more... you know stay in them when travelling and contribute our money to them rather than hostels?

Just a thought...

 

Absolutely! The social centre scene is slowly kicking off over here but is massive in Europe, as long as people contribute in whatever form they can I don't see any problems, and it's a great way to politicize/ learn more about libertarianism.:H

 

Incidentally, whatever happened to the convoy and all their offshoots?

 

Maggie Thatcher.

 

I gathered that much, but didn't a lot of them cross the channel or something?