Squatters in a property owned by former Manchester United footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs will leave the site in January.
The chairman of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, Giles Peaker, said the group of homeless people and activists had permission to be in the building and were therefore licensees and not technically squatters.
With around 726,000 empty buildings in England, the possibility existed for similar short-term use elsewhere, Peaker said. Neville and Giggs have planning permission to convert the building into a hotel, with work due to begin in February.
