Builder took over an empty house and now sold it for 540K.

Jane43

I am wondering how the original owner of the home was granted sheltered housing when he owned his own home. We have started researching options for the years ahead as we just turned 80 and we have assumed sheltered housing won’t be an option for us as we own our own home and if we sell it we will have too much capital to apply.

Where we live, quite a few people have sold houses and been given an “ old people’s bungalow”. I don’t know how it’s justified.

Thanks for the link growstuff. This was when squatting was criminalised. However that did not prevent a squatter from acquiring ownership as was demonstrated in this case. The law of adverse possession has not been abolished. In the case of registered land proof of possession for ten years without acknowledgment of the title of the owner is required. If the land is unregistered, twelve.

The simple fact is that Curtis was never the owner of the property because he took no steps to administer his late mother’s estate. It’s odd that the ‘heir hunters’ didn’t get involved, but perhaps a quick search showed that the mother had a living son and they didn’t do anything more because they wouldn’t have got a fee.

A very unusual set of circumstances but, typically, sensationalised by the DM with talk of the house having been ‘stolen’. When did they let facts get in the way of a story though?

Jane43

I am wondering how the original owner of the home was granted sheltered housing when he owned his own home. We have started researching options for the years ahead as we just turned 80 and we have assumed sheltered housing won’t be an option for us as we own our own home and if we sell it we will have too much capital to apply.

It appears that he didn't own it, though. His mother died without making a will and, according to the extract from the article lemsip posted, he wasn't the registered administrator of his mother's estate. Now, in view of the recent thread about bona vacantia the necessity to be 'registered administrator' makes looking to claim a legal right to the estate of a relative who dies intestate to be less straightforward than I thought.

Perhaps our legal eagle could explain?

I am wondering how the original owner of the home was granted sheltered housing when he owned his own home. We have started researching options for the years ahead as we just turned 80 and we have assumed sheltered housing won’t be an option for us as we own our own home and if we sell it we will have too much capital to apply.

I read somewhere or other (as I often do then forget my source) that a blind eye was often turned to squatting after WW2. There were so many families whose homes had been destroyed and, at the same time, empty properties, whose owners had sadly been killed, that people put 2 and 2 together and moved into empty properties. In order that the situation didn't become a free for all, laws were enacted, so that if people lived in a property and maintained it and nobody claimed it within a reasonable timespan, the squatters could apply for the deeds.

Let me put forward the alternative.

My parents spent their retirement living on a pleasant seaside estate. Shortly after they moved there, the owner of a bungalow nearby, used as a holiday home died. When he made his will the bungalow was worth £10,000 and he left £5,000 of its value to his second much younger wife and the rest to his children.

By the time he died the house was worth £50,000 and his second wife was so miffed that despite the increase in value she only got £5,000 that she refused to agree to any sale. The children didn't want the house and didn't live anywhere convenient, so it was left to gradually become derelict.

The second wife outlived her husband by nearly 30 years. The house was on a private estate, she paid the maintenance bills, and when the estate management got contractors in to cut front shrubbery/hedge back from the pavement she paid the bill, likewise whe they put up barriers because the house was in such a parlous state it was not safe, she paid

For 30 years neighbours had to live with this decaying property blighting their homes and the street and they had to deal with rats and other vermin that could live there unmolested.

When the lady finally died, the property was beyond rescue, so it was demolished and the site sold - as a building plot.

I agree that squatting must be controlled. In many big cities it had become an aggressive deliberately destructive and political movement and owners should have strong legal rights to eveict squatters.

But I think there should always be a place for squatter like this man, who gradually moves into a property, maintains it, even improves it and where over a period of 6 years or more the owner does nothing to assert their rights to the property.

The ownership of property carries responsibilities as well as rights.

Were there no other family members? Probably not as surely they would have come forward to assist Mr Curtis. It’s rather a sad case.

I mistakenly put retirement home in OP but
correction.
Mr Curtis, on the other hand, lived on £261 a week from his state pension and tax credits in a modest warden-assisted flat a few miles away in Romford

The builder took over the property and
A few months later he applied to the courts for permanent possession of the property, which was worth around £400,000 at the time. Mr Curtis, on the other hand, lived on £261 a week from his state pension and tax credits in a modest warden-assisted flat a few miles away in Romford, He won following an appeal despite the * judge accepting that he had committed criminal trespass*
Mr Curtis, who passed away aged 80 in 2018 then launched a counter claim, but this was dismissed by Judge Elizabeth Cooke on the basis that he was not a registered administrator of his mother's estate and had no legal right to fight for her home.

HOW THE LAW FAILED MR CURTIS
Squatting was made a criminal offence in England and Wales in September 2012. To do it in a residential building can lead to six months in prison, as well as a £5,000 fine.

However before it was criminalised, squatters could claim ownership of a property by living in it for a certain period of time.

If the land was unregistered, a trespasser could claim rights to it after 12 years of so-called ‘adverse possession’. If registered, they could apply to be owner after occupying it for ten years. The original owner had up to two years to obtain possession – but if this did not happen, the squatter remained in possession.

Keith Best’s attempt to register ownership of Colin Curtis’ house was initially blocked because it was made a few weeks after the law was changed.

However he was then granted ownership in a High Court ruling in 2014.

The judge said previous legislation – which treated squatting as a civil matter – should apply.

Doris Curtis had died without a will and her son had not realised he had to apply to become an administrator.

The house in Newbury originally belonged to his widowed mother Mrs Curtis, who died in the late 1980s aged 88.

Germanshepherdsmum

When did that happen growstuff?

I think this is the relevant document:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/220062/squatting-circular.pdf

Georgesgran

I wonder why the care home didn’t ’suss out’ that their new resident had a property that should’ve been sold to pay his fees? Could they, or the council (who presumably had been picking up the bills, unless of course the resident had a substantial amount of cash) take joint action for a proportion of the sale to recover their costs?

I'm sure GSM can explain, but my interpretation is that Mr Curtis had never legally owned the home.

Germanshepherdsmum

When did that happen growstuff?

I'd have to check, but I think the article about it says 2014, which is why the initial application by the man who took over the house was rejected. I also have some vague memory about the law being changed a few years ago.

The answer is No.

Excellent question georgesgran !

When did that happen growstuff?

I wonder why the care home didn’t ’suss out’ that their new resident had a property that should’ve been sold to pay his fees? Could they, or the council (who presumably had been picking up the bills, unless of course the resident had a substantial amount of cash) take joint action for a proportion of the sale to recover their costs?

SporeRB

Shocking! Time to abolish the squatters right to property or land that does not belongs to them.
I cannot understand how some people can justify this law when it is so morally wrong.

It has been abolished.

if you find something you should try and find the owner, whatever you find!
back in the day I was taught the law of 'stealing by finding' nowadays it's finders keepers!.

Shocking! Time to abolish the squatters right to property or land that does not belongs to them.
I cannot understand how some people can justify this law when it is so morally wrong.

Was he ill? I think I read he'd gone into a care home.

You'd have thought someone in the family could have sorted something out.

Indeed. I have no sympathy for the man who simply abandoned his mother’s home. He is the author of his own misfortune.

It has been the law for hundreds of years that if a property, or land is left unattended and someone takes it over, looks after it and lives there without being challenged for 10/12 years they may clain legal ownership.

The builder spent a lot of money doing the property up, maintaining it and keeping it in a liveable state, and of course house values have gone up.

What would have happened otherwise. the house would npw have been standing derelict and unoccupied for over 25 years. Just think what a state it would have been in, probably a rat-infested jungle, a blot on the landscape and distressing for the neighbours.

It is clear the original owner had not been visiting the house or doing anything to keep it in good order. He could have let it out - and got an income, made enquiries about what he should do to deal with his mother's estate. He could surely see that everyone else whose parents died, dealt with the estate.

The house would be worth a fraction of £540,000 if sold after being neglected for 25 years. It would probably have to be demolished. Site value only.

These rules are there for a purpose. This rule has kept this house in use, maintained and occupied, instead of being a blot on the landscape.

That is disgraceful.