I moved out for decorators and squatters took over my house

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Connan Gupta, 40, who had been staying with his sister, returned to find 10 unwelcome visitors at his £700,000, five-bedroom home in Camberwell.

The squatters, who claimed they were students unable to pay living costs in London, changed the locks and refused to let him in. The four men and six women, who brought in two pet dogs, said five more squatters would be arriving in the coming days.

They said they would not move out as the property had been unoccupied and they had not broken in. Speaking through a window, one of the squatters said they were studying English, adding: "We have no money to pay for rent." Mr Gupta, who runs a hotel with his parents in Paddington, said he was paying for solicitors to try to force the squatters out, and is still having to cover the domestic bills. The first he knew was a notice posted in his window by the group.

"Everything's in there," he said. "All my worldly possessions, from medication for my skin down to all my valuables and everything in between. I'm profoundly shocked that this can happen.

"It is hellish. I always triple-lock the house - when I went away I made sure everything was locked. It is really scary that you can go on holiday and come back and your house has been taken."

Squatting is deemed only a civil offence, although it is against the law to damage property by gaining entry. If squatters manage to stay in a home for 12 years, it effectively becomes theirs.

Mr Gupta, now staying in Isleworth with his sister, is trying to obtain an eviction order through the civil courts. He said: "We just have to sit here and wait. It's as if the squatters have more rights than I do." Police are understood to have entered the property to establish who was there but said they were unable to act as it was a "civil issue".

Julian and Samantha Mosedale and their three children were locked out of their home in Tottenham for five days when Romanian squatters took over the property.