Boaters favorite toilet read :

Foreign squatters given legal aid to fight eviction from £1million house... as its British owner has to represent himself in court

By Ryan Kisiel

Last updated at 12:03 PM on 22nd February 2011

Squatters who broke into and occupied a £1million house have been given hundreds of pounds of taxpayers’ money in legal aid to fight eviction.

The intruders from France, Spain and Poland have been living in the three-storey five-bedroom townhouse for a month.

Meanwhile, owner John Hamilton-Brown has been forced to rent a two-bedroom flat for his family while he battles to get the gang out of the house.

Neighbours said the property had just been sold when the 12 squatters broke in during the early hours of the morning after a window was forced open.

Since then there has been more damage and endless parties – several of which have culminated in the police being called.

Yesterday, some of the squatters danced, waved flags, sang and played the guitar outside the property. They also bragged about how easy Britain’s laws were in allowing them to take over homes.

A French man who called himself Jean-Claude, said: ‘I came to England seven years ago because this is where the love is.

'We will speak to other people from all over the world to come here and live because it is so easy. Why can’t we live anywhere we want?’

A French girl with blonde dreadlocked hair added: ‘I love it here. We move around where we want and share our love. You should see the views in there – it’s amazing.’

Mr Hamilton-Brown, 36, applied to the county court last week to seek an interim possession order to enable him to claim the house back.

He did not hire a solicitor because of the expense.

But when he arrived at Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court, in East London, he was amazed to find that two of the squatters had been granted legal aid and were represented by a duty solicitor.

Because they were EU citizens and unemployed, they qualified for free legal representation.

Mr Hamilton-Brown had already been to the court four times since his home was invaded on January 21.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1359285/Foreign-squatters-given-legal-aid-fight-1m-house-eviction.html#ixzz1EjtwMvVX

OK, the free legal aid is because they are EU citizens and unemployed, but I'm willing to bet that an Indian / Pakistani / African who was unemployed would also get free legal aid in most circumstances.

My bitch here is not the FLA, but the fact that these bludgers commited a crime by breaking and entering a home, committed a further crime by trespassing and are now being supported by the state in furthering that crime.

These oiks are criminals - there is no way out of that, they have confessed publicly to committing a crime. They broke a window to force their way into the property. Breaking and Entering - done. Six months without the option. They have remained on the property - trespassing - done. One year without the option.

The sooner Britain secures her borders against all these unwanted pillagers of our national wealth, the better.

Australia is daily discussing her 600 (or is it 6,000?) boat people. UK gets more than this every month and they get supported by our social services people, who then complain about their low pay-scale. Keep these bludgers out and we could sack half the social workers and give the remainder a decent pay packet.

This is not a problem that homeowners in Texas have.

This is not a problem that homeowners in Texas have.

It used not to be a problem in the UK.

It is now over fifty years since I worked for a guy named Peter Rachman (Polish Peter) and later for his wife Audrey.

He was what would now be called a slumlord, in that he owned a lot of old, dilapidated properties, mainly in West London. He did them up, put in new tenants at much higher rents and made a lot of money.

The problem was - getting the old tenants to move out. This is where I and a few others came in. We had to persuade the sitting tenants to leave. Many had been in their digs long enough to have a statutory right to stay there. So we did what was termed 'de-statting'. Many invenntive ways were used, not just brute force (although that was very effective in several instances). But that is all illegal in Britain now, the law is on the side of the perpetrator, not the property-owning victim, who is adjudged to be able to look after himself without any help from the state (but woe betide him if he uses force of any sort).

It is really ridiculous what has taken place over the past twenty years.

In some states in America I think the home owner could just go inside and shoot them. As long as he does it inside his own house it's ok. Pretty cool, eh?

From Wiki:

Rachman was born Perec Rachman in Lvov, Poland in 1919, the son of a Jewish dentist.[1] After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Rachman may have joined the Polish resistance.[2] He was first interned by the Germans and, after escaping across the Russian border, was interned in a Soviet labour camp in Siberia where he was very cruelly treated.[3] After the Germans declared war on Russia in 1941, Rachman and other Polish prisoners joined the 2nd Polish Corps and fought on behalf of the Allies in the Middle East and Italy. After the war he stayed with his unit, which remained as an occupying force in Italy until 1946 when they transferred to England. Rachman was eventually demobilised in 1948 and became a British resident.[4]

In England Rachman built up a property empire in West London consisting of more than one hundred mansion blocks and several nightclubs. He operated from an office at 91-93 Westbourne Grove, in Bayswater, and the first house he purchased and used for multi-occupation was nearby in now-fashionable St. Stephen's Gardens, London W2. Adjacent areas in Notting Hill (W11), including Powis Square, Powis Gardens, Powis Terrace, Colville Road and Colville Terrace were also early areas where he subdivided and let rooms, initially often for prostitution. Much of this area south of Westbourne Park Road, having become derelict, was compulsorily purchased by Westminster City council in the late 1960s and demolished in 1973-4 to make way for the "Wessex Gardens" estate.[5][6]

In order to maximise his rental from his properties, he is said to have driven out the —mostly white—sitting tenants of the properties he owned in Notting Hill, who had statutory protection against high rent increases, and then to have packed the properties with recent immigrants from the West Indies. New tenants did not have the same protection under the law as the sitting tenants had possessed, and so could be charged any amount Rachman wished. Most of the new tenants were Afro-Caribbean immigrants who had no choice but to accept the high rents, as it was difficult for them to obtain housing in London at the time due to the colour bar. Indeed, Rachman's initial reputation, which he even promoted in the media, was as someone who could help to find and provide accommodation for immigrants who would otherwise find it difficult.

According to his biographer, Shirley Green, certain elements of the traditional story about Rachman, such as the use of violence to drive away the sitting tenants, may be mythical, and more devious methods were used, such as relocating the protected tenants in a smaller concentration of properties or buying them out, in order to minimise the number of tenancies with statutory rent controls. Also, houses were subdivided into a number of flats in order to increase the number of tenancies without rent controls.[7]

Rachman did not achieve general notoriety until after his death, when the Profumo affair of 1963 hit the headlines and it emerged that both Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies had been his mistresses, and that he had owned the mews house in Marylebone which Rice-Davies and Keeler had used as a base for their trade.[8] He had largely moved out of slum-landlording into property development after 1958, but his former henchmen, including the equally-notorious Michael de Freitas (aka, Michael X/Abdul Malik), who still managed to build an almost separate life and reputation as a black-power leader and event promoter of jazz and blues, helped to keep him in the limelight.[9][10]

As full details of his activities were revealed, there was a call for new legislation to prevent such practices, led by Ben Parkin, MP for North Paddington, who coined the phrase "Rachmanism". The subsequent 1965 Rent Act added to the security of tenants, but had the unintended consequence that private rented housing became scarce.

In some states in America I think the home owner could just go inside and shoot them. As long as he does it inside his own house it's ok. Pretty cool, eh?

I'd use some nice big dogs. Hungry, aggressive.

I know other people in England who have fallen victim of this.

A friend of the family once bought a house only to find they could not move in because of squatters. Two years they were in there for. Of course, this friend tried to sell the house but she had no chance, she was lumbered with the payments on a house she couldn't use.

I can't remember what happened, if she eventually got the house vacated or if she abandoned the mortgage forsaking her credit rating. I know she was considering both.

Somebody, somewhere got this law massively wrong and it needs fixing.

***EDIT***

Of course, most of these squatters are, in fact, Caucasian English people. But being the Daily Mail, it's not newsworthy unless immigrants are involved.

From Wiki:

Rachman was born Perec Rachman in Lvov, Poland in 1919,

In England Rachman built up a property empire in West London consisting of more than one hundred mansion blocks and several nightclubs. ...... Much of this area south of Westbourne Park Road, having become derelict, was compulsorily purchased by Westminster City council in the late 1960s and demolished in 1973-4 to make way for the "Wessex Gardens" estate.[5][6]

In order to maximise his rental from his properties, he is said to have driven out the —mostly white—sitting tenants of the properties he owned in Notting Hill, who had statutory protection against high rent increases, and then to have packed the properties with recent immigrants from the West Indies. ..... Indeed, Rachman's initial reputation, which he even promoted in the media, was as someone who could help to find and provide accommodation for immigrants who would otherwise find it difficult.

According to his biographer, Shirley Green, certain elements of the traditional story about Rachman, such as the use of violence to drive away the sitting tenants, may be mythical, and more devious methods were used, such as relocating the protected tenants in a smaller concentration of properties or buying them out, in order to minimise the number of tenancies with statutory rent controls. Also, houses were subdivided into a number of flats in order to increase the number of tenancies without rent controls.[7]

Rachman did not achieve general notoriety until after his death, when the Profumo affair of 1963 hit the headlines and it emerged that both Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies had been his mistresses, and that he had owned the mews house in Marylebone which Rice-Davies and Keeler had used as a base for their trade.[8]

As full details of his activities were revealed, there was a call for new legislation to prevent such practices, led by Ben Parkin, MP for North Paddington, who coined the phrase "Rachmanism". The subsequent 1965 Rent Act added to the security of tenants, but had the unintended consequence that private rented housing became scarce.

I've trimmed this down a lot, but it is essentially correct.

Some of the methods we used were to start to 'improve' the properties. Around November time we would find a couple of Paddy labourers who were looking for work, ask them to replace the roof on a block. Off came the old roof, then the guys asked for an advance to buy the new materials. "What??!! - that's your job!!" "Come back in the New Year, I should have some money then" So three or four months of no roof moved out quite a few tenants. If that wasn't enough we'd take out some windows.

Other times we'd hold parties in an empty flat, 72 hours or more. Didn't work so well, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Then there was Peter Rann - a nutter to beat all nutters - and his dogs. Put them in a house and all tenants were out within an hour, bags packed, ready to roll. Several other characters around that are probably dead now - most were ten years or more older than me. After Peter died I worked for Audrey, managing 'Le Discotheque' in Wardour Street. It was probably the first real disco in London, with a gambling place upstairs - mainly chemmy and roulette.

Great time in my life - playing rugby, working and living in Swinging London at the end of the Fifties / beginning of the sixties. Down the Crazy Elephant in St James - all the swinging crowd there - Randy Mice a celebrity after the Profumo trial, Vicky Barrett and other girls. Didn't see much of Christine Keeler, though - very much her own girl.

One of the tenants I had in the UK stopped paying the rent. After many months of patience, took the lady to court and gained an eviction notice. Problem was the court erred and gave her 29 days instead of thirty to get out. This was spotted by her legal aid bloodsucker who advised her to take it to the appeal court as this would drag out the case for best part of a year and she could still live for free. This of course raised all legal bills by a factor of ten.And the %^&** stayed in my flat, free for another eleven months. Just before she was due to appear, she said she was sorry and if I would drop the charge she would move out. Foolishly I agreed.

Why foolishly ? Day she moved out after living free for a year, her duty bloodsucker appealed to the court to award all costs against me, as I had started the legal process. You have to be joking said I. I was given an eviction order and the court erred not me and I didn't decide to appeal on such a ludicrous technicality in order to further rob me, she did. Sorry said the court, they are never held accountable through privilege and I should have seen the error. All costs awarded against me, nearly 12 thousand quid.

End of tail. Woman wrecked my flat, squatted for a year, went all the way to the appeal court on a court administration error of one day on a valid notice and I paid for the lot. Rule Britannia.

One of the tenants I had in the UK stopped paying the rent. After many months of patience, took the lady to court and gained an eviction notice. Problem was the court erred and gave her 29 days instead of thirty to get out. This was spotted by her legal aid bloodsucker who advised her to take it to the appeal court as this would drag out the case for best part of a year and she could still live for free. This of course raised all legal bills by a factor of ten.And the %^&** stayed in my flat, free for another eleven months. Just before she was due to appear, she said she was sorry and if I would drop the charge she would move out. Foolishly I agreed.

Why foolishly ? Day she moved out after living free for a year, her duty bloodsucker appealed to the court to award all costs against me, as I had started the legal process. You have to be joking said I. I was given an eviction order and the court erred not me and I didn't decide to appeal on such a ludicrous technicality in order to further rob me, she did. Sorry said the court, they are never held accountable through privilege and I should have seen the error. All costs awarded against me, nearly 12 thousand quid.

End of tail. Woman wrecked my flat, squatted for a year, went all the way to the appeal court on a court administration error of one day on a valid notice and I paid for the lot. Rule Britannia.

And you wonder why people use methods somewhat less than legal, which are quick and effective?

From Wiki:

Rachman was born Perec Rachman in Lvov, Poland in 1919,

In England Rachman built up a property empire in West London consisting of more than one hundred mansion blocks and several nightclubs. ...... Much of this area south of Westbourne Park Road, having become derelict, was compulsorily purchased by Westminster City council in the late 1960s and demolished in 1973-4 to make way for the "Wessex Gardens" estate.[5][6]

In order to maximise his rental from his properties, he is said to have driven out the —mostly white—sitting tenants of the properties he owned in Notting Hill, who had statutory protection against high rent increases, and then to have packed the properties with recent immigrants from the West Indies. ..... Indeed, Rachman's initial reputation, which he even promoted in the media, was as someone who could help to find and provide accommodation for immigrants who would otherwise find it difficult.

According to his biographer, Shirley Green, certain elements of the traditional story about Rachman, such as the use of violence to drive away the sitting tenants, may be mythical, and more devious methods were used, such as relocating the protected tenants in a smaller concentration of properties or buying them out, in order to minimise the number of tenancies with statutory rent controls. Also, houses were subdivided into a number of flats in order to increase the number of tenancies without rent controls.[7]

Rachman did not achieve general notoriety until after his death, when the Profumo affair of 1963 hit the headlines and it emerged that both Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies had been his mistresses, and that he had owned the mews house in Marylebone which Rice-Davies and Keeler had used as a base for their trade.[8]

As full details of his activities were revealed, there was a call for new legislation to prevent such practices, led by Ben Parkin, MP for North Paddington, who coined the phrase "Rachmanism". The subsequent 1965 Rent Act added to the security of tenants, but had the unintended consequence that private rented housing became scarce.

I've trimmed this down a lot, but it is essentially correct.

Don't you see the irony in this? You post an anti-immigrant article from the Daily Mail and then hold up as a good example Rachman who actually spent his days turfing whitey out onto the street so he could offer the now-empty accommodation to black folks from the Caribbean.

Don't you see the irony in this? You post an anti-immigrant article from the Daily Mail and then hold up as a good example Rachman who actually spent his days turfing whitey out onto the street so he could offer the now-empty accommodation to black folks from the Caribbean.

You probably wouldn't have had the Notting Hill Carnival without Peter's skullduggery

Ladbrook Grove was a pit, but these were the days when the UK government was encouraging WIs to come to London, so that we could keep our buses and underground running.

Personally, I lived in Earls Court at the time and had to put up with hordes of Ockers, Kiwis and Springboks cluttering up the place. Couldn't get in the pubs for them and the Irish.

The original post wasn't necessarily aimed at immigrants or EU-igrants, but at the system that grants legal aid to criminals to contest a suit against them and allow a guy to get into the family home he has just purchased. Don't care if the squatters were from Liverpool, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan or down the road from Finchley. Don't care if they were black, brown, yellow or a greyish-pink, they are leeches on society and should be in a chain-gang - digging the fields for more non-GM crops.

The original post wasn't necessarily aimed at immigrants or EU-igrants,

Two words: One is Mail, the other is Daily.

I know as well as you do that it isn't an immigration issue, but the OP article made it that way!

My point in posting the original article was that this crazy society that is now the UK norm was providing free legal aid to squatters who had invaded a family home and were now being supported in their attempt to stay there, when the home owner wanted to move in with his family.

The only things the squatters had going for them was that they were penniless, jobless and criminals. This made the authorities immediately jump to their aid, saying "Oh, we must help these lazy, healthy yobs." "But we mustn't move them to council accommodation, 'cos we want to sell the little bit we have left. So let's just pay the lawyers a million to settle this in our favour."

My point in posting the original article was that this crazy society that is now the UK norm was providing free legal aid to squatters who had invaded a family home and were now being supported in their attempt to stay there, when the home owner wanted to move in with his family.

I thought that was pretty clear myself. I wonder where the exalted Guardian stands on the issue?

I'm just so shattered at the outrageous treatment of these poor landlords I'm incapable of starting the thread I planned on the history of illegal evictions.

Leases broken, tenants murdered... where was John Wayne when he was really needed.

I'm just so shattered at the outrageous treatment of these poor landlords I'm incapable of starting the thread I planned on the history of illegal evictions.

Leases broken, tenants murdered... where was John Wayne when he was really needed.

No offence, but when someone squats in your home, stealing it from you, who really gives a flying monkey's a** about the "history of illegal evictions"? IF the home owner himself had a history of screwing tenants over, then I would agree with what goes around, comes around. But unless I didn't understand the article correctly, that isn't the case here.

No, we're talking about laws made to protect legal tenants that are being abused by a few though.

Once this campaign to break the "pro-squatter" legislation succeeds do you think it will stop there?

It's a fact of life that some people will only ever rent their homes. Landlords need these people to make their living, but no one in their right mind is going to trust most landlords to self regulate.

I just got this spam-email chain letter today which reminded me of this thread...

LET'S SAY I BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE!!!!

A lady wrote the best letter in the Editorials

In ages!!! It explains things better than all

The baloney you hear on TV.

Her point:

Recently large demonstrations have taken place

Across the country protesting the fact that Congress

Is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

Certain people are angry that

The US might protect its own

Borders, might make it harder

To sneak into this country and,

Once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand

The thinking behind these protests.

Let's say I break into your house.

Let's say that when you discover

Me in your house, you insist that I leave.

But I say, 'No! I like it here.

It's better than my house. I've made all

The beds and washed the

Dishes and did the laundry

And swept the floors. I've

Done all the things you don't

Like to do. I'm hard-working

And honest

(except for when I broke into your house).

According to the protesters:

You are Required to let me stay in your house

You are Required to feed me

You are Required to add me to your family's insurance plan

You are Required to Educate my kids

You are Required to Provide other benefits to me & to my family

(my husband will do all of your yard work because

He is also hard-working and honest, except for that

Breaking in part).

If you try to call the police or force me out,

I will call my friends who will picket your

House carrying signs that proclaim my

RIGHT to be there.

It's only fair, after all, because you have

A nicer house than I do, and I'm just

Trying to better myself. I'm a hard-working

And honest, person, except for well,

You know, I did break into your house

And what a deal it is for me!!!

I live in your house, contributing only a

Fraction of the cost of my keep, and

There is nothing you can do about it

Without being accused of cold,

Uncaring, selfish, prejudiced, and

Bigoted behavior.

Oh yeah, I DEMAND that you learn

MY LANGUAGE!!! So you can Communicate with me.

Why can't people see how ridiculous

This is? Only in America .

If you agree, pass it on ( in English )..

Share it if you see the value of it.

If not blow it off......... Along with your future Social Security Funds, and a lot of other things.

Only in America .

Or the UK!

One of the tenants I had in the UK stopped paying the rent. After many months of patience, took the lady to court and gained an eviction notice. Problem was the court erred and gave her 29 days instead of thirty to get out. This was spotted by her legal aid bloodsucker who advised her to take it to the appeal court as this would drag out the case for best part of a year and she could still live for free. This of course raised all legal bills by a factor of ten.And the %^&** stayed in my flat, free for another eleven months. Just before she was due to appear, she said she was sorry and if I would drop the charge she would move out. Foolishly I agreed.

Why foolishly ? Day she moved out after living free for a year, her duty bloodsucker appealed to the court to award all costs against me, as I had started the legal process. You have to be joking said I. I was given an eviction order and the court erred not me and I didn't decide to appeal on such a ludicrous technicality in order to further rob me, she did. Sorry said the court, they are never held accountable through privilege and I should have seen the error. All costs awarded against me, nearly 12 thousand quid.

End of tail. Woman wrecked my flat, squatted for a year, went all the way to the appeal court on a court administration error of one day on a valid notice and I paid for the lot. Rule Britannia.

While my heart and sympathies go out to you unreservedly, if we look at the bigger picture of "law and order" , we have to realise that it is very difficult to write into law something that will satisfy all comers.

Historically, morally corrupt landlords took advantage of weak tenants....the law was adjusted to make things fairer. The pendulum has yet to swing back to being fairer to the landlords.

It is instances such as yours, if publicised enough, that will force that pendulum back to where it should rest.

Publicise your situation.

While we're kicking the evil landlords let's not forget that God-awful tenants have avoided paying rent and bills and destroyed property since the days when the first caves were rented out and some dam_n trog-renter scribbled all over the walls. That stuff never comes off you know.

While we're kicking the evil landlords let's not forget that God-awful tenants have avoided paying rent and bills and destroyed property since the days when the first caves were rented out and some dam_n trog-renter scribbled all over the walls. That stuff never comes off you know.

Gets preserved because some poofy art critic ame along and said "Ugh, ugh, burra burra" which means "How exquisite. It is just the thing for this age. Only a sheep preserved in formaldehyde would improve on this"

Make yourselves at home! Squatters enjoy plush surroundings of Gaddafi's son's £11m mansion

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364912/Gaddafis-son-Saifs-11m-mansion-Squatters-enjoy-plush-surroundings.html#ixzz1GE21TFeZ

Make yourselves at home! Squatters enjoy plush surroundings of Gaddafi's son's £11m mansion

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364912/Gaddafis-son-Saifs-11m-mansion-Squatters-enjoy-plush-surroundings.html#ixzz1GE21TFeZ

I think they're Libyan students studying in the uK?

Have a fine old time of it until Muammar is in complete control again (maybe 2-3 weeks) and then he'll start on all the families of the demonstrators.

And the world's politicians will turn their backs for a few more weeks, then start paying courtesy calls on the old villain and bring him lots of big fat brown envelopes.

Oh yeah, I DEMAND that you learn

MY LANGUAGE!!! So you can Communicate with me.

Why can't people see how ridiculous

This is? Only in America .

If you agree, pass it on ( in English )..

Share it if you see the value of it.

If not blow it off......... Along with your future Social Security Funds, and a lot of other things.

We were at the ASSI market (great korean grocery)yesterday, and as there was a bit of a line I was talking with the guy in front of me. As we were discussing a particular noisy young child screaming no no no to her parents (latinos) and as this man was latino we were speaking in Spanish I ask him how long he'd lived in Atlanta. His wife and he had been there for four months. He had been in GA for a couple of months earlier in the year to learn the route over the border to bring wife in and now they were very happy to be here. They were looking for work. They had a full cart of groceries and I noticed he used a GA state welfare card to pay for it.

How in the blue blazes with no english speaking skills, no ID can you get welfare in a country going broke paying for 15-20 million illegals. Being in grocery lines and seeing this over and over year after year has been a pet peeve of mind

Make yourselves at home! Squatters enjoy plush surroundings of Gaddafi's son's £11m mansion

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz1GE21TFeZ

I think they're Libyan students studying in the uK?

Have a fine old time of it until Muammar is in complete control again (maybe 2-3 weeks) and then he'll start on all the families of the demonstrators.

And the world's politicians will turn their backs for a few more weeks, then start paying courtesy calls on the old villain and bring him lots of big fat brown envelopes.

You reckon? I think most of the world knows that Gaddafi is a mad dog (to use Reagan's description). I don't think the world will turn it's back....procrastinate, but not turn it's back.

How in the blue blazes with no english speaking skills, no ID can you get welfare in a country going broke paying for 15-20 million illegals.

it's not the illegals bankrupting your country. your country is going bankrupt because of its costly illegal military excursions to other countries.

please tell us some more good jokes like the one about 15-20 million illegals on welfare.

His country is going bankrupt because of borrowing too much money and a bunch of other factors - just like most of Europe.

Yes going broke borrowing $$$ couldn't have anything to do with 700 million a day

(as of 2007) being spent on the Iraq, Afghanistan invasions

That of course did not contribute to the record deficits we’re facing now....Ok sweet dreams