Squatting in England and Wales

In England and Wales,¹ squatting  – the occupation of property without the owner's permission – has been progressively criminalised since the 1970s. The relative toleration accorded by a common law tradition in which the practice was unlawful but not criminal, was eroded in the wake of a wave of squatting that in the '70s crested in London. At the end of that decade, there were estimated to be 50,000 squatters in England and Wales, with 30,000 in the capital.

Squatters typically occupied local council owned housing which had lain empty awaiting demolition and redevelopment. Having a statutory duty under the 1948 National Assistance Act to house homeless persons, councils were at times willing to tolerate these occupations on a temporary, licensed, basis. On rarer occasions, squatters were able to persuade the authorities to recognise them as a housing association or cooperative with a legitimate claim to permanent accommodation.

There was a much smaller incidence, in London, of organised groups squatting in privately-owned city-centre properties. The greater publicity surrounding these higher-profile occupations contributed to an increasingly hostile coverage of squatting in the media focused on left-wing politics, alternative life-styles and drug-taking.

The law surrounding squatting began to tighten. In 1977, the Criminal Law Act defined conditions in which trespass, which has been a tort (that is, a matter for redress in a civil proceeding), could be considered criminal. These were broadened by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to include refusal to leave after being ordered to do so by a person entitled to occupation. Finally, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 made squatting in residential property, in itself, an offence subject to a penalty of up to 6 months in prison, a £5,000 fine or both.

Within this constrictive legal framework, squatting in the 21st century, tends to involve protest actions or pop-up venues in non-residential property where trespass remains a civil matter.