£22.5 million squat starts new empty housing debate

photo credit: leedsyorkshire

Empty housing can be a hair-puller on two fronts – firstly, all that unused property can turn an active buyer green at the gills because owners who sit on stock drive up prices. But if you do happen to be in charge of a house while turning it around, there’s always the question of keeping an eye on it.

In London, owners have to be particularly on their guard thanks to a collection of squatters with expensive housing tastes. The Telegraph reports the artistic group were recently thrown out of a Grade II-listed house on upper Grosvenor Street. They’ve now moved on up the ladder and are reportedly encamped in a property in Clarges Mews which went for £22.5m in April last year.

Christmas gives the game away

Apparently the owners, a company called Timekeeper, only realised someone had entered the house when they spotted a Christmas tree in December. How festive.

The Telegraph says the occupants are the Temporary School of Thought, a knowledge-sharing group which even has its own website and is using the house as a workshop base. There’s even an online timetable which promised “traditional French book binding” on Sunday.

What to do with empty housing?

Of course, the basics of removing squatters vary from country to country, but in the UK, if there’s no forced entry present, you have to go to court to get rid of them. This means a time delay during which public opinion can start warming the issue – throwing out a group of drug addicts is one thing, chucking out artists holding workshops is a different kettle of fish – especially after they attract national press attention.

Empty housing remains a problem in the UK – which still has a considerable house shortage. Rather than leaving something this valuable empty, maybe renting it on the cheap to artists would have been a safer option.