Offices, cathedrals or police stations to live, a legal and little known proposal that is practiced in this country in Europe

A plastic plant, an empty hydrogel vegetable or office material can be the new decoration furniture of your house. The stained glass windows replace the windows of a living room, while the crucifixes and robes are stacked in a corner gathering dust because it is what their old residents have left behind. Even the cells of an abandoned police station can serve to make a welcome party. The housing crisis adopts multiple forms and in the United Kingdom Legal guardians of uninhabited properties have become a growing reality.

A cathedral, an office in a luxury neighborhood, a school, a bank are the new place of residence for many London as An affordable solution against exorbitant rentals. ABC tries to know more about this peculiar option and its tenants.

A demand triggered

Basically, the operation is that a company finds tenants for disuse property. These residents are called Guardians or property guardians who pay monthly a fixed license feewhich is ostensibly lower than private rental. The number of applications to become one, as explained by Graham Sievers, president of the Association of Property Guardianship Suppliers (PGPA), is “the highest that has been” since the history of this practice.

Sievers details ABC that among the Guardians they have had A retiree who saved enough money To buy your retirement home in Wales. They also had the case of A Documentary producer winner of the BAFTA and at the Cannes Festival who lived in an old church or the example of workers such as nurses, who seek to live closer to their workplace without spending most of their rental salary.

People who seek to become guardians or properties tutors have shot. «With more than 1,000 applications a week, with an increase of 60%», He tells ABC Sievers of the PGPA, which includes the main property protection companies of the United Kingdom.

A strong increase considering that in 2022, applications were 600 per week. Being property guardians has become the most feasible alternative For young people aged 20, 30 and, now, also for those who are over 40 years old. In fact, Sievers transfer us statistics that point to the fact that 1 in 10 tutors are between 50 and 60 years old. 90 % have full -time job and 1 in 5 tutors work as a medical, legal or accounting professional.

While Rentals continue to experience “the fastest increase in 30 years”, According to PGPA. And according to the government, the rent increased by 11.5% last year, reaching the 2,220 pounds (2,665 euros) a month. And Sievers indicates that Spareroom’s data, a popular floor colleagues search site, indicate that the average monthly rental of a room In a shared accommodation in London it is already at 993 pounds (1,192 euros).

A little known practice

This peculiar and unknown practice began in the Netherlands in the 80s. Sievers shares that among the stories of the property of property, the case of Poppy, a 29 -year -old woman That, after becoming a property tutor, he could have enough money to buy a house. Poppy after the university ran into an offer from a room in an old press writing that cost only 300 euros per month. He lived in a variety of interesting properties for four years, from an elderly residence from the 30s to a cabin on the land of a park. Poppy believes that guardianship is really great, whether you are the creative type or work from home.

While Andy, is a 54 -year -old man, craftsman and marriage professor That began his experience as a tutor after deciding to move to a rural area, where he is delighted. This option has also become a solution to Tidus, with 29 years is former member of the Armed Forces And recommend the custody of property for someone who has just left the army

The profiles are multiple and the residences are of all kinds. The CNN reports that even an abandoned cathedral has been home to an electrician, a sound engineer and a journalist who paid to live in the priest’s units. While Luke Williams, 45 years old has saved thousands of pounds for rent as tutor in the last six years. He currently lives in a wide space of offices in eastern London. “In addition to making sense financially, I like lifestyle and peculiar places”he said to the American environment.

Louis Gross, a 29 -year -old journalist and former tutor to the media came to live in a police station With another 50 tutors and every month he paid a 500 -pound license rate (about 600 euros). Remember to have organized parties in the basement and in the detention cells, and have climbed a fire staircase to access the kitchen. The cheerful chaos and the camaraderie made him feel, he said to the CNN, as if he were on a pirate ship. But it emphasizes that guardianships should be a “platform” to help people save money to buy a house, not their last resort. “It is not a lifeguard,” he said.

After all, There are tutors who have been saving for years doing guardians and still does not arrive to pay a rent to use. There are also voices that complain about the conditions of these properties, and those who respond by saying that it depends on the rigor of the intermediary that puts the future guard in contact with the owner. For its part, PGPA makes monthly properties of the properties because prioritizing the safety of residents.

“Half of a private rent”

Sievers explains that the transfer of residential and commercial properties empty to temporary accommodation for property guardians It provides an ‘intermediate use’ to a space that would otherwise be wasted. “What supports the spirit of sustainability: reduce, reuse, recycle,” he says.

“My main concern at this time is that the current government of the United Kingdom, like the previous ones, has made some bold promises on how to address the housing crisis,” says Sievers, but adds that these Objectives are long -term.

In addition, it details that one of the advantages for the owners of these properties is that temporarily empty properties remain safe and protected in front of the squatting or vandalism by placing property guardians to live in them. And save on costs of 24 -hour surveillance systems or active patrols, while they are an economic revulsion for the area.

And if it is necessary to “rehabilitate the properties, the tutors have 28 days to move to another location and, in exchange for this brief notice, pay approximately half of the costs of an equivalent private rental «, Sievers establishes. In addition, they argue that they prevent abandoned or empty buildings and land can become garbage landfills. Regenerating the neighborhood, as comments on Action on empty homes with the support of the Nationwide Building Society Foundation. Sievers points out that he asked the government to develop an agency to regulate the industry.

«With the short conversion time that is required to convert many of these places into protected properties, there is An option that could house more than 100,000 people in a matter of weeks». Reusing existing buildings requires much less energy than demolishing them and building new homes.

As for the United Kingdom Ministry of Housing In their guide on guardianships it emphasizes that “it does not encourage practice because people cannot be asked to live in conditions that do not meet the standards of residential properties. Meanwhile, the question for many is that this option although it watches through good habitability facilities Do not become a patch to solve the housing problembut in a short -term solution waiting for other complementary proposals in the face of the housing crisis.