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'Ghost homes' of the wealthy face invasion by squatters
Jonathan Prynn and Miranda Bryant20.07.09
Hundreds of "ghost houses" standing empty in London's most exclusive neighbourhoods face invasion by squatters.
Many of the apparently abandoned homes in areas such as Mayfair, Kensington and Hampstead are worth up to £20million.
Latest figures show there are about 65,000 empty properties across the capital - more than in recent years. The biggest cluster is in Mayfair, where 60 large homes worth a total of at least £500million are unoccupied.
The Standard revealed how a group of squatters has moved into a nine-bedroom house in The Bishops Avenue, close to Hampstead Heath and one of Europe's most expensive streets.
The squatters warned how a lack of affordable housing in London means other empty "trophy homes" are at risk. Thousands of smaller townhouses left empty across the city are also threatened. Experts suggest these were bought during the height of the property boom and are being retained as investments.
Last year at least 2,512 homes stood empty in Kensington and Chelsea, 1,654 in Islington and 3,627 in Barnet.
This year a group of squatters, dubbed the Real Slumdog Millionaires, occupied two £20million homes in Park Lane that had been empty for seven years. The owners - who often cannot be identified because they use offshore tax havens to buy homes - have been warned by councils that the houses could be repossessed and sold for conversion into flats. Councils can start compulsory purchase proceedings if a property is empty six months after a warning has been sent to owners.
One large townhouse, vacant for more than a decade, is in Connaught Square, where Tony Blair has a home.
Squatters took over the Brentford house belonging to MPs Alan and Ann Keen, who are being investigated for listing an empty property as their main home.
Dirk Cotze of Prep Ltd, a company of professional squatters that claims to have been "managing" the property in The Bishops Avenue for the past two months, said: "Is there a record number of empty properties in London? Yes. There are more squatters now in London than there ever has been. It is a risk. That is why we need more affordable housing."
Trevor Abrahmsohn, managing director of Glentree Estates which sells most properties in The Bishops Avenue, said about 10 per cent stand empty at any one time. "Some are empty because they're owned by international royal families...and some because money is safer there than holding it elsewhere. The cost of holding a property empty is less now than it ever was because interest rates are so low," he said.
Reader views (9)
Empty property regulation are a disgrace they only target soft options like my poor Grandmother in a nursing home she has a so called empty property which she has lived in all her life she has become ill but hopes to return to her home where she had her children and her husband died it will kill her if the idiots who squatted have their way and get the council to make a compulsory buy up order on her property for peanuts no doubt. this is not an empty property but the hard earned family home of a sick elderly lady who is already paying the price of hard work with huge hospital bills for strictly medical needs under the disguise of it being a 'care home'
Anyone supporting these squatting work shy scum should be ashamed or perhaps they should give up their own home for them.
- Richard, London
Ethan, UK
Can you highlight 'one' case where people have gone on holiday for two weeks to return to the situation you mentioned?
Your kneejerk response complete with stereotypes is ridiculous.
How you can compare squatting to Communism is a joke.
What next? Hitler killed the Jews because they were squatters?
- Eli, London, UK
I just don't get it..how are people allowed to do this and there are no laws to stop it? Its another persons property, how can people just invade in and nobody can do something??
- Nikos Stylianou, Nicosia, Cyprus
Stop crying about it, its not your house is it?
The people who probably lost it, were some idiotic bankers who probably nicked your nans pension.
- Alex, Ilford, Essex
@Fred, London
Don't worry, it also happens in Holland. I don't agree with their methods and consider it breaking and entering and should be punishable by law. I tend to agree with their reasons for squatting (mostly as some places in Holland it's hard to get affordable housing as a student or starter) and rent via anti-kraak (anti-squat) where you rent a place that's empty (sometimes a room, or an entire floor) to prevent squatting. The only drawback is that you can get kicked out when the owner of the building has plans. But you always get a new place to legally squat and you get notice beforehand. Not the best way to start a life, but for students without a need for a real home, it's a great solution.
Regular squatters, well, I just don't respect them, it's not your house, so stay out.
Ron
- Ron, Schiedam, Netherlands
Get in there and have some fun !!!!
- Nick Holland, glasgow
The squatters are latching onto the sympathies of many who dislike 'the wealthy' as their flavour of the month excuse for their theft and vandalism of property - seeing it as a way to use passive political pressure on local and even national level politicians who react to situations according to the ebb and floe of public sentiment.
That doen't change the fact that these are trespassers and parasites on society and should be seen as such.
- Rogan, Irving
It's absolutely pathetic that the law hasn't been changed to stop the so-called squatting. Only in Britain could people get away with this.
Another sorry indictment on the Government (both Liebore and the Cons) for having let this continue.
- Fred, London
Our society has sunk pretty low when you can't leave a house unoccupied for fear of some unwashed hippy types stealing your use of it. It may have a cuddly nickname 'squatting' but it's just a type of theft and I'd like to see such thieves locked up.
Let's extrapolate a bit here and soon you'll think twice about those two weeks in spain because when you arrive home swampy has your house and is busily applying for credit cards etc in your name armed with your own paperwork. Try proving you didn't apply for those loans when he's got your address/ phone and bank statements.
People who have no home is indeed a sad thing but stealing other peoples property is NOT the answer. We have a name for that it's called communism, and look how successful it's been around the world. Communism has killed more people than the Nazi's ever did.
I'm sure that this won't be the popular view but I'm against theft in all it's forms and this is one of them.
- Ethan, UK
