A court direction that effectively prevented the eviction of squatters from property during the Covid-19 pandemic has been hastily rewritten, following pressure from the Property Litigation Association and Property Bar Association.
The PLA and PBA jointly wrote to the Master of the Rolls last month seeking clarification of the new Practice Direction 51Z which stayed all possession proceedings brought under Civil Procedure Rules Part 55 for three months.
The biggest concern was that, under the new Practice Direction, property owners would be forced to put up with trespassers – and the damage they may cause to property – while the stay of possession proceedings remained in force. The PLA and PBA said this effectively constituted “a three-month licence to trespass”.
In response, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, has amended the Practice Direction to exclude possession claims against “persons unknown” who are trespassing on property, which could include, for example, travellers, protestors or others squatting in commercial or residential property who are not known to the owner. Interim possession orders, enforceable against trespassers by police in certain circumstances, are also now excluded.
In their letter to the Master of the Rolls, Mathew Ditchburn, chair of the PLA’s law reform committee, and Joanne Wicks QC, chair of the PBA, had written: “Squatting in residential premises is, of course, a criminal offence under Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. However, this does not apply to commercial properties (many of which will be empty during the coronavirus crisis and/or more difficult to protect against trespass) or open land.
“Members currently involved in such possession proceedings are already finding that the courts are automatically staying the proceedings in circumstances which they (and their clients) do not consider fair.”
The PLA and PBA had also been concerned that, rather than assist in limiting the movement of people, the Practice Direction could have encouraged squatters to move into empty premises or open land, bringing with them the risk of transmitting the coronavirus.
In addition, landowners may have felt compelled to request police assistance or exercise their common law right to use reasonable force to recover possession of their commercial premises, again increasing the risk of spreading the virus.
Welcoming the decision, Ditchburn said: “The intervention by the Master of the Rolls to remove trespassers from the stay of possession proceedings is sensible, timely and fair, giving landowners the ability to fully protect their properties from squatters at an already difficult time.”
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