Squatting has been with us for many hundreds of years. The earliest cases can be traced back to 1381 when the Forcible Entry Act was passed. Following the end of the First and Second World Wars, some soldiers were forced to live in empty or derelict properties due to lack of decent housing.

Since the 1960s onwards squatting has been on the increase, with co-operatives and organisations springing up attracting people from all ages and backgrounds. In fact one of the better known squatting co-ops was a cluster of streets in the London Fields area of East London, which contained artists, the unemployed, students and even office workers living a nine to five lifestyle.

But why do squatters choose this particular way of life?

Sometimes it's because they have been made homeless and have been living on the streets or cannot face the local council's policy of housing the homeless in Bed and Breakfasts or hostels (that's if there is space). Others will also see it as a lifestyle choice.

The number one squatting rule, though, is to enter only empty and unused properties. Long gone are the days when holidaymakers would return home from a fortnight in the sun to find their homes had been taken over. These days it's more likely to be an empty and abandoned office block or warehouse.

For and against

The Advisory Service for Squatters offers legal and practical advice for anyone who may want to (or needs to) squat. They say: "According to the Empty Homes Agency there were 804,000 empty homes in the UK in April 1998. There is enough empty property other than homes, e.g. offices, to be converted into the equivalent of 700,000 homes. The number of squatters has been estimated recently to be as high as 30,000 (in the Guardian) but a more realistic estimate would be a little under 20,000 very few of whom are outside England and Wales, and most of those are in London."

Hackney Council, which has had well-publicised battles with squatters in the past, had this to say on the subject: "It's a fallacy that Hackney council has lots of squatted premises anymore. These days we have very few. If we do we move very quickly to sort the problem out. We have a policy of regenerating empty properties."

What you can and can't do:

• Squatting is not strictly speaking a criminal offence, it is a civil offence against the landlord/owner of the property which to all intents and purposes means that it is an unlawful practice but not illegal.
• You can be convicted of a criminal offence if you have caused damage to the property by gaining entry, covered under the Criminal Justice Act 1994.
• The Landlord/ owners are well within their rights to evict squatters but they must go to a civil court in order to gain a possession order.
• Squatters do have limited rights. A landlord cannot remove you by violent or forced means, only through the legal process.
• Under squatters rights, if a property has been lived in for 12 years then it effectively becomes the property of the squatters.

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