If you own a commercial property of any kind and it’s currently sitting vacant – beware of the squatters. Serviced offices, with their plush lobbies, comfortable break-out rooms and kitchenettes are obvious targets for this most costly of infestations. So what can you do to prevent your serviced offices from such a human invasion?
Well, the Ministry of Justice has just announced that they will be urgently reviewing legislation that will finally make squatting illegal and speed up evictions. This came about largely thanks to several recent high-profile and well-publicised cases where squatters took residence in multimillion pound homes in some of London’s most affluent districts. Would you believe there’s even a ‘squatter’s handbook’ to help would-be law-breakers with a step-by-step guide to unoccupied property habitation.
Protect your serviced offices now is the advice we’d give because, although useful, new legislation will do little to prevent the potential damage that squatters could inflict on your property. Typically such vandalism is carried out within the first 24 to 48 hours with clean-up costs ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds depending on the property involved.
The current situation is unbelievably biased towards the squatters, who are allowed to enter empty properties (albeit without causing damage on entry) and the police can do little to interfere. It can take weeks or months to remove them by going through the civil courts and can cost thousands of pounds.
At Movehut.co.uk we do our utmost to ensure that your property remains vacant for the shortest time possible. But, with thousands of squatting incidents a year, it is well worth investing in a good alarm system, a competent security officer and regular inspections of your empty serviced offices or other commercial properties to ensure you do not fall victim to this most costly of crimes.
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Commercial property & Serviced offices
