Talk:Squatting in England and Wales/Archive 1

This is more of a "how to squat" page
There's some interesting stuff on the history of the squatting "movement" here, and plenty of links for squatters to follow like an instruction manual, but it completely dominates the article, devoiding it of balance. Details of court orders such as interim possession orders are missing. I dare say the whole article is written by a squatting fan. Wait, it's all written by one person.

I'm not even sure if it's big enough to warrant a separate article, unless it's going to go into much more detail of England's squatting laws, rather than just links to print-out-and-display squatting kits.

In effect, this article is being squatted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.101.231.75 (talk) 23:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ms Unsigned Commenter - The article is not written by one person, it was moved here from Squatting where the page was getting too big as a whole. Luckily for you someone has now added more information about IPOs etc Mujinga (talk) 18:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Must agree. This article is a violation of WP:SOAP. Also it breaks the rules on WP:NOTGUIDE because it tells potential squatters what to do with the tone of a Squatting advocacy group. Likewise its portrayal of squatting as some sort of "right on", "moral", "direct action" makes it all sound so decent and normal - when it is in fact an illegal act/the occupation through trespass of property that is not ones own. So high and mighty!! Maybe the pages on rape and robbery could do with the POV of the perpetrators too! Needs a heavy rewrite 86.139.149.156 (talk) 08:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It's also widely out of date with the change to the law that occurs this evening. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:41, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Move back
I've moved the name back to "Squatting in England" because the new law only criminalises squatting in residential properties. Squatting is still an ongoing issue whether it is legal or not, so I don't think the "History" title is appropriate. Any thoughts? Grim23 ★ 14:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * hi i'm not sure which edit you are talking about here, i couldn't find any under your name Mujinga (talk) 10:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

POV tagging
I have tagged this article as being in violation of WP:NPOV. I do not believe the article is a neutral reflection of the topic or the available reliable sources. It makes unsourced pro squatting statements and in several instances uses a pro-squatting pressure group as a source for what is presented as neutral factual information. Guest9999 (talk) 19:29, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As this discussion appears to have had no results, I've removed the POV template per the instructions on the template's page:
 * ''This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * ''There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * ''It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * ''In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
 * If editors are continuing to work toward resolution of any issue and I missed it, please feel free to restore--and of course I'd still encourage Guest to edit to resolve the issue they raise above. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes i think this tagging says more about the bias of Guest9999 and/or KC9TV who posted on the NPOV noticeboard and didn't get any replies. People are welcome to add referenced information. Just to make it clear, as stated above, I didn't actually write all of this page, I merely created it with old context as a branch from Squatting. Mujinga (talk) 10:27, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This page
I'm scratching my head on this one. This page doesn't seem to be working out well - i created it as a branch from Squatting since that page was getting large, but now people are simply adding new information about England and Wales to the original entry here and here, resulting in duplication of information, which is not ideal. I guess the two solutions would be:

1. Move this page's contents back into Squatting and delete it.

2. Move the content currently on Squatting/England and Squatting/Wales over to this page.

I'm leaning towards 1, since 2 would mean continually having to transfer information from Squatting to here. Any thoughts?


 * on reflection i'm leaning towards 2 now, since i guess we could put a template or a lock on Squatting/England and make sure new stuff goes here. But also rename this page to England and leave Wales on the mother page until it becomes big enough to fork. I only made the page England and Wales because it's the same legal environment.
 * An additional problem worth bearing in mind is that I already created Squatting in the United States a long time back, so we have another fork to deal with as well.Mujinga (talk) 22:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * i've put a request for advice here Mujinga (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * ok for now i've followed option2, which was relatively painless Mujinga (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Whether squatting is a civil or criminal matter
The article states that squatting is a civil, not a criminal matter. This is not entirely correct - it implies that the criminal law does not touch on squatting, which is not the case. What is a closer representation of the truth is to state that: I don't know what the "Squatter's Handbook" might say on the matter, but it is never going to be accepted as a reliable source. The Telegraph article is not particularly accurate either in this regard, and at the very least does not support the generalised claim that squatting is "not a criminal matter". ninety:one  23:11, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * the act of squatting itself is not a specific offence,
 * the law relating to squatting provides squatters with some protection,
 * the normal way of dealing with squatting is to apply for court orders through the civil courts, and
 * squatting rarely attracts police intervention.


 * Prior to the 2012 law change, squatting (in most cases) was covered under civil law. Trespass on vacant properties was normally not a criminal offence, so if was dealt with through the courts by Order 113 in the High Court or Order 23 in the County Court for "occupying premises by virtue of an act of trespass". Once a possession order was granted, this could be legally served.
 * Breaking and entry was an offence (criminal damage), as was other related issues such as stealing electricity.

09:17, 28 May 2016 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noel Ellis (talk • contribs)

Allegation of councils pouring cement down toilets
During my years with the Squatters Network of Walworth (SNOW) and its successor the Southwark Homeless Information Project (SHIP) in London (1987-90) I knew of cases where toilets has been disabled by cement down the pipes, but cannot confirm that this was the action of city council workers (with or without instructions). We are aware that council staff would discourage squatters by dismantling the toilet cistern or toilet seat etc, but it is unlikely that they would permanent disable the system like this, as they knew that in the long term, one day they would have to repair the damage. It is suspected that this kind of sabotage was the action of evicted squatters who felt that "if I can't have it, no one else can". What is verifiable is that councils would rent steel "anti-vandal doors" to keep squatters out of empty flats. Council staff were only pawns in the system, administering council policies. One story from the WIRE (a fortnightly squatters newsletter published by SNOW) was that workmen were nailing boards on a squat that had just been evicted. They asked the evicted squatters if they were going to move back in. They avoided saying so (as then they could be evicted by re-serving the original possession order), but said they knew someone else who would. The council workmen, who could see the futility of evicting people and leaving flats empty, said "in that case we won't bother hammering the nails all the way in". I would like to create an entry on both SNOW (1982-88) and SHIP (1988-2012) 09:06, 28 May 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noel Ellis (talk • contribs)


 * Hi Noel Ellis - would be great if you wanted to add some information about SNOW and SHIP!
 * Re Cement, well you were there at the time, I wasn't, but it seems rather unlikely to me that squatters would bother to pour cement down toilets, that's a waste of cement that could be used at the new place! I'm not sure if I've seen proof it was council workers doing this back in the day, but i've definitely seen references to it happening. I don't think they were thinking about eventually renovating the buildings, at least some of the time the buildings were condemned.
 * In my experience it's almost always people working for the owners who trash the building to prevent it being squatted in the future, normally what i've seen are smashed toilets, removed cables, kitchens disassembled etc etc I don't think people bother using cement any more, at least i didn't hear of it happening. Mujinga (talk) 17:43, 15 August 2016 (UTC)