Amsterdam: Always Anti-Anti-kraak

Sunday afternoon there was a small action at a former squat in Amsterdam Noord. The squatters are angry, because in the evicted building is now an anti squat workspace. The building, that had been squatted already for 3 times, got evicted last summer. It turns out it got evicted for anti-squat. Below a statement of the squatters:

Today we are here to put the situation surrounding the building in the middle of your neighborhood under attention. The old pizzeria on Statenjachtstraat 598. Probably the recent history of this building is still known to you, but to summarize:
After years of vacancy, last year the building got bought by to rich real estate dealers, Axel Veldboom and Frans Blom. Last summer, the place got resquatted (it was already squatted 2 times before). It was clear for the squatters that there were no short term plans for the building. But the owners did have a plan. A pretty ambitious and unrealistic plan, to build an enormous building in the middle of the neigbourhood.
The state decided to start a procedure to evict the squatters, squatting is forbidden, and the owner claims to have a plan. The squatters decided to fight the state in court, to prevent the eviction. In a court case like this the importance of interests is being weighed against each other by a judge, or at least it should be. On one side the needs of the state for having the place evicted, and on the other side the needs of the squatters, to be able to have a place to live. [Read More]

Wassenaar: Huize Ivicke squatted

Wassenaar, july 5th 2018 – This week, the rapidly decaying mansion Huize Ivicke, at Rust en Vreugdlaan 2, was squatted. Built like a little palace – stripped by a real estate speculator.

His name is Ronnie van de Putte: a man with a remarkable reputation in the real estate world, notorious for speculating with A-locations and deliberately letting monuments rot away. Bever Holding, the real estate fund in which Ronnie van de Putte owns the majority of the shares, owns the mansion and lets it rot for years. It has therefore been given the appearance of a haunted house, which it is to some extent as a ‘letterbox’ for a range of Ronnie affiliates.

The sad fate of Huize Ivicke is a perfect example of speculation. Because the owner renounced his social responsibility for this special monument and the government seems incapable of changing this (1), we as a group of people looking for a house, squatted the mansion. With the help of friends and family we want to do some work around and on the house in the coming weeks and start a creative living-group here. By living in Huize Ivicke and taking the necessary care of it, we hope to save the monument from further decay. [Read More]

London: Among the property guardians

Pic from protest at Rectory Gardens in 2012.

Rectory Gardens, a residential mews in Clapham Old Town, is being emptied, one household at a time. Henry, who has lived in the street since 1985, is among those waiting to be rehoused. When he leaves, Lambeth Council will probably hire Camelot, a ‘vacant property management’ company, to install ‘guardians’: people who pay the company for the privilege of staying in disused buildings and keeping out squatters. There are several property guardians already living on the street.
[Read More]

Netherlands: Camelot is using people in need of housing as ‘real estate pawns’ and as ‘out-sourced dwellers’ that only serve to facilitate speculation

Camelot_antisquatted_castle

Accusation of Camelot Europe by Bond Precaire Woonvormen

Camelot Europe is an international vacant property management company, that started in the Netherlands. Their business is vacant property management services to provide real estate clients with a ‘cost effective, high quality and flexible solution’ to protect vacant properties against vandalism and such. Camelot provides these services in the UK, Ireland, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and is now attending Mipim 2014.

Its ‘services’ to the real estate sector are in fact a way to maximise profit from vacant properties by exploiting people in need of a house. Camelot was one of the first Ductch ‘antisquat’ companies that came up with the idea of having people in need of housing live in empty buildings as ‘property protectors’ on temporary flex-contracts and without any tenants rights. These dwellers can be kicked out of their house on a two weeks notice, are deprived of privacy as Camelot will randomly inspect their premises to see if they ‘behave properly’, and are forced to agree to a set of conditions that constrain their freedom of behaviour and mobility. [Read More]