From 1st September squatting will be deemed an offence where a person is in a residential building as a trespasser, having entered as a trespasser, and the person knows or ought to know that he or she is a trespasser and the person is living in the building or intends to live there for any period.

Clarifying to their member landlords on an announcement from the Ministry of Justice on 22nd August - the Residential Landlords Association confirm that the maximum penalty for the offence is six months’ imprisonment, a £5,000 fine or both.

The offence will protect owners and lawful occupiers of any type of residential building. This includes homeowners and lawful occupiers who might have been excluded from their homes by trespassers, but it will also protect landlords, second homeowners and local authorities who discover trespassers in any residential property that they own or control, even if no one is living there at the time the trespassers occupy the building.

The offence will not apply to tenants who entered a residential building with the permission of the property owner, but who later withhold rent or refuse to leave at the end of their tenancy. Such persons are not deemed to be ‘squatters’ for the purposes of this offence.

The RLA say that landlords should continue to follow established eviction processes to regain possession of their properties in such circumstances.

However the offence will not apply retrospectively and those people who are known to have squatted in the past will not be liable to prosecution. The offence will only apply to people who are squatting in residential buildings on or after 1 st September 2012 but this does include any trespassers who entered the building prior to commencement, if they remain there on or after the 1st September.