Squatter wins right to OAP’s £400k house
Outrage at landmark court ruling
A PENSIONER who lost his empty house to a squatter branded the law ‘an ass’ yesterday after a judge dealt a final blow to his hopes of seizing back control.
Colin Curtis, 80, also now faces losing the modest one-bedroom flat he lives in because he could have to pay both parties’ legal costs.
The decision upholds a landmark ruling in favour of Keith Best, who took over the house, which was seen as a victory for squatters’ rights. ‘It’s not fair. The law is an ass,’ Mr Curtis said. ‘It’s like someone getting in your car then saying it’s theirs because they’re sitting in it.’
The saga began when builder Mr Best, 47, quietly began renovating the three-
‘People can’t believe it when I tell them’
bedroom, semi-detached house in 1997. It had been left empty after Mr Curtis moved out a year earlier, when he inherited another property from an aunt.
Mr Best then moved into the £400,000 house in 2012, and later that year submitted an application for adverse possession – under which a trespasser can win rights to somewhere they do not legally own. He was turned down by the Chief Land Registrar as his claim came just a few weeks after squatting was criminalised.
However this was overruled by the High Court in 2014, with the judge saying previous legislation which treated squatting as a civil matter should apply.
Mr Curtis, who had been unable to visit the property, had no idea what had happened until the Daily Mail approached him at the time. He then launched a counter-claim for the property in Newbury Park, North-East London, but this has been dismissed on a technicality. ‘People can’t believe it when I tell them,’ Mr Curtis said. ‘They don’t understand how anyone could get away with it.’
Mr Curtis – who lives in sheltered accommodation in Romford – is now waiting to see if he will have to pay Mr Best’s legal costs of £37,000, as well as his own. ‘I could lose my home if I have to pay his costs,’ he said. ‘I’d need to sell it.’
The house belonged to Mr Curtis’s mother, Doris, who died in the late in 1980s. Mr Curtis moved out in the mid-Nineties, but continued paying council tax until six years ago, when he received a letter from Redbridge Council saying it was no longer necessary.
Mr Curtis, who suffers from heart problems, assumed it was to do with the state of the property and was never able to visit. His son and daughter were dead by then and he had no other family close by.
After learning of Mr Best’s claim, he lodged a complaint but his application to take back control was denied as his mother had died without making a will and Mr Curtis had not realised he needed to apply to become an administrator of her estate. Mullis & Peake, the solicitors for Mr Curtis, said the outcome was ‘very disappointing’. Mr Best declined to comment.
Ilford South Labour MP Mike Gapes said: ‘Law and justice are sometimes very different things.’