Pensioner loses home to squatter

A property tribunal has ruled that a squatter does have the right to the house of 80-year-old Colin Curtis as his mother had died without leaving a will.

An 80-year-old man says the law is “an ass” after a tribunal handed over his three-bedroom house to a squatter.

Colin Curtis moved out of the three-bedroom semi-detached house in 1996 after inheriting a flat, where he has lived since.

Then in 2012, 47-year-old squatter Keith Best moved into the house in Newbury Park, North London and began renovating the property.

Later that year Mr Best submitted an application for adverse possession of the house – worth around £400,000 – under which a trespasser can win rights to a property they do not own.

Mr Best’s application was originally refused by the Chief Land Registrar, as squatting had recently been criminalised.

However, this decision was overturned by the High Court in 2014, with the judge ruling it should be treated as a civil matter.

Mr Curtis then lodged a complaint to the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), but Judge Elizabeth Cooke denied his application to take back control of the property because he was not a registered administrator of his mother’s estate. She had died without leaving a will and he did not realise he needed to register.

Mr Curtis says he doesn’t understand how Mr Best has “got away with it”. “People don’t believe me when I tell them,” he said.