Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The meeting will hear from homeless charity Crisis about how criminalisation
will hurt the most vulnerable people in society, already reeling from the cuts
and the recession. An associate of the Empty Homes Agency along with the
Advisory Service for Squatters will talk of how the law change will only protect
property speculators and unscrupulous landlords not home-owners. SQUASH
will outline how the legislation may be unworkable in law, unenforceable by
the police and unaffordable to the public purse.
He added,
'How does the treasury plan to pay for the additional costs to the police, the
courts, prisons, homelessness providers and the housing system with their
budgets straining already?'
There are nearly 700, 000[iii] empty investment properties in the UK. The
Ministry of Justice has already indicated it would like to extend the existing
legal protection of homeowners to these absentee landlords[iv], allowing them
to continue to keep the buildings empty.
Paul Palmer an empty property consultant and associate of the Empty Homes
Agency said, 'Squatters tend to occupy long term empties often owned by
absentee property speculators registered in offshore tax havens. So no I don't
think that squatting should be criminalised. To do so would only help to
protect one set of people, the greedy and the powerful who can afford to keep
property empty.'
END
http://www.squashcampaign.org
Notes to Editors
[i] The briefing (Criminalising the Vulnerable) will be available on the day from
www.squashcampaign.org and by email request.
[ii] The original SQUASH documents from the early 1990s are available at
http://www.scribd.com/squashcampaign and also
http://www.squashcampaign.org
Sourced at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2011-03-
30b.97.0#g102.7