MAKE SQUATTING A CRIMINAL OFFENCE

January 29, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

Regardless of who is the owner of a property, regardless of whether or not there is a dispute over ownership of a property, no one has a right to be squatting on another land.

In other areas, squatters have set up permanent residence on the banks of major canals, posing a threat to health and to effective drainage. The affected are forced to sell their properties at next to nothing.

Take a walk through Tiger Bay and you will be horrified. There are many properties which were leveled by fire many years ago. Those properties are now occupied by squatters. How is anyone going to remove them?

The government has spent millions to give lots to those who were living in poor conditions in that area. It is not clear whether those who were given lots are the same persons who are still living in these squalid conditions, but if they are they should be asked to return the house lots and any other help that the taxpayers of this country provided.

If they are not, then it means that those persons who are unlawfully occupying private property should be encouraged to remove. There are obviously lawful means to have these persons removed but this means taking court action and given the sloth in the courts, this process will take an eternity.

As such, if the authorities are keen on maintaining law and order, they have to ensure that there is an efficient system of law and order to prevent the lawlessness that is taking place whereby persons can simply go onto your property and occupy it and you have a difficult time to get them out.

This should not be allowed and laws should be passed that would make squatting and trespassing criminal offences.

In London, consideration is being given to making squatting a criminal offence as it is in Scotland. Unless this is done, there is going to be a great many problems. A major private investment was lost many years ago when a man planning to establish a major hotel discovered that a squatter had moved onto his property.

The investor simply abandoned the idea.

Many poor persons are also affected by squatting. Squatting in many parts of the country has turned neighborhoods into eyesores and many have been forced to move before the situation gets worse and they lose all that they have invested in their properties.

If the government has an enterprising housing drive, it should not be regularizing squatting. It should simply deem squatting criminal and allow the law to take its course.

The government has already expressed its concern over the unlawful squatting that is taking place on public lands. Many years ago, most of the areas north of the East Coast Public Road were reserved for the protection of the sea defenses.

A great many of these lands were over time occupied by persons and the authorities were forced to regularize these areas, with the result that today there is limited space for holding ponds to help drain the Coast. Should there be a breakaway of the seawall, there is no place for the sea water before it gets to the traditional housing areas.

The complaint is often made that persons who are squatting have nowhere to go. Well, they must have been somewhere before they ended up squatting and there is no reason why they should not return to where they used to be.

There is also often the charge that they are not receiving government house lots. With the declared number of lots that have been distributed in Guyana, every single Guyanese family should have by now received a house lot from the government.

That all have not, suggests that persons who are not entitled are receiving. These are excuses that are often made about squatting and whenever the demolition squads descend on squatters, there is always a huge outcry about the injustice being done.

But what about the injustice that squatters commit when they act unlawfully. What about the rights to legitimate home owners which are affected whenever someone unauthorized moves onto someone else’s land. Consider the investment that person would have made and still cannot have uses of their property because someone decided that they should go there.

The government has begun to take action. They have passed legislation prohibiting persons who are squatting on state lands from gaining prescriptive rights.

But this law does not apply to private lands and there is a need for a system to be put in place to make squatting a criminal offence so that legitimate property owners are not unduly frustrated by the actions of the lawless.

At the same time, the poor will be encouraged to squat when they notice influential persons being allowed to occupy state reserves.

Unless therefore that the government ensures that the rich are also constrained in occupying state reserves, the task of limiting squatting by the poor will be more difficult