A Bit Daft, Wot?

So this guy who's having his house in London renovated takes a break and goes, as they say over there, "on holiday." When he comes back home, the door locks have been changed because 15 unemployed Italians moved in while he was gone and are claiming something called "squatter's rights." They posted a notice and everything. Technically, the legal concept at hand is something called "adverse possession," which involves people moving onto unused or semi-abandoned property and developing or otherwise making it productive.

Since the new "tenants" aren't doing anything but sitting around watching the homeowner's DVD's and having their pictures taken, a successful adverse possession claim is unlikely. As is the chance that they will understand the phrase "adverse possession," or much of anything else requiring them to exert effort on their own.

The man can't just call the police to have them evicted, because squatting in England is not a criminal matter, but a civil one. Meaning he has to sue them to get them to leave, instead of just having their lazy layabout hindquarters hauled off to some other free housing, courtesy of Her Majesty's constables. They claim the front door was unlocked and the neighbors told them no one had lived there for two years, and since they can't afford to pay rent someplace, they have the right to move into a house they don't own on property they don't own. They also claim to be students, but one might be a bit wary of accepting their word about that...or much else, I imagine.

It may turn out that the squatters are evicted from the property, and that someone in authority in England has a momentary lapse into reason and decides to ship them right on out of the country. They then may decide to do what many people unable to find opportunities in Europe have done for the last two or three hundred years and move to America. In which case I have advice they should heed, and that most closely:

Do not try to pull this stunt in Texas.