In Australia, as in most of the planet, the same problem exists: housing. Buying a house has become almost a utopia for the vast majority, and the crisis has then spread to the rental market. But one lawyer seems to have found a small loophole through which to thread a thread. Since there is no slum law there, the question has been asked: what happens if we find empty houses?

A network of empty houses. What the lawyer has built since he began a series of actions three years ago is a whole network of empty houses in the country. He is not promoting squatting, but “something else”, as he himself puts it. In any case, he is playing with many interests in the swampland, in fact he has already received all kinds of threats, even death threats.

First there was TikTok. The story of lawyer Jordan van den Berg dates back to 2021. For some time now, he has been uploading videos to the social network under the pseudonym Purple Pingers. He has mainly dedicated himself to uploading pieces in which he makes fun of the real estate industry and its agents. In essence, a harsh criticism of a problem that affects millions of people, especially young people.

@purplepingers

If the government won’t do anything about rich people hoarding empty houses, do it yourself. Send vacant houses near you via my link tree (this is the second link) 🙂

♬ original sound – Jordie van den Berg – Jordie van den Berg

In the videos, Jordan is sometimes expressionless, at others there are interspersed songs, but always with the same goal: to point out a broken system and the scarcity (and filth) of housing across the country. The pieces began to gain traction and followers, and he was quickly overwhelmed by the feedback they received and the personal stories he received about the housing crisis.

Shitty rentals. The name is not unimportant. When the lawyer was unable to respond to numerous requests, he created the Shit Rentals website; This website was a database where Jordan compiled thousands of comments from anonymous people and their true horror stories, all accompanied by photos confirming the “ruins”. where many people live or live.

And other kinds of stories, perhaps harsher, have begun to emerge — stories that highlight the mistreatment of landlords and agents who, Jordan says, use their positions of power to exploit the vulnerability of many tenants.

Images of some rental houses from the Shit Rentals website

The system is broken. Jordan explained to the BBC a few weeks ago that “landlords and agents have access to a lot of information about tenants, but tenants don’t have the same level of transparency in return.” This is why Shit Rentals has been successful. “Exposing unresponsive agents, checking misleading rental listings and sharing the poor condition of some properties has been a way of feeling like we’re taking some of the power back,” he told The Feed.

Identify vacant homes. So last April, she took a turn in her crusade. There are an estimated one million empty homes in Australia, many of them in areas where the crisis has forced people to live in tents. What she did? She asked her followers to send her addresses of empty properties that could be forwarded to someone in need. “If the government doesn’t do anything to stop the rich hoarding empty homes, we will,” she said in a TikTok video posted in front of an apparently empty house.

@theprojecttv

The man behind Shit Rentals, Jordan van den Berg, AKA Purple Pingers, joins us to tell us how he lists vacant properties to help homeless people legally keep a roof over their heads. #purplepingers #shitrentals #shitrentalalsoofmelbourne #rental #home #fyp #foryou @Jordie van den Berg

♬ original audio – TheProjectTV

Just 48 hours after that statement of intent, it had received more than 400 property applications, mostly from Australia, but also with US or UK addresses. Most are around population centres, usually capital cities, and around 60% are in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest capital.

Australian law. Jordan is a lawyer and knew there was a small gap, a gray area so to speak. “There is no slum law in Australia; They just have negative property laws and invasion laws,” he tells Adelaide Now. “The basic principle of our title system is that if you don’t use that land productively and someone else does, it becomes your property as part of the adverse possession laws (if you occupy it for 12 years).”

Of course, there is also the flip side, because there are laws that prohibit trespassing and remaining on private property when an order to leave is given. In this regard, South Australian Real Estate expert Paul Edwards told the same media that although there are no laws regarding “unlawful occupation”, anyone on someone else’s property will be considered a trespasser.

The Gertos case. He was very famous in Australia because he explained how the law worked. In 1998, Sydney property developer Bill Gertos broke into a three-bedroom house and claimed it as his own after learning that its elderly owner had died.

He renovated it, changed the locks, and put tenants in the place for 20 years, so he essentially had them occupy it for him. What happened? He earned $1.4 million by buying the deed of the house in 2018 and selling it in 2020.

Origin of a common law. As John Bui, senior solicitor at JB Solicitors in Sydney, explains, Australia’s squatter laws are there to encourage responsible and productive use of land, and landowners have their own obligations to maintain the property. “If they don’t maintain that land and they abandon it, then it would be a waste not to let someone else use it,” he says.

Network. Jordan’s database works like this: People submit an address to a Google form and usually provide a description of how long the location has been available or how to enter it. The lawyer then checks to see if there are any planning or planning applications for the property in question and tracks the condition of the house on Google Maps, detailing “noting areas that have been abandoned by the owner for at least two years.”

According to domain name sales Jordan found online, the selection and condition of the homes varies, with “many properties valued at over $1 million,” and some are even worth $4-5 million. Additionally, since the database was launched, it has begun matching people with nearby vacant homes on a number of occasions. Jordan connects his followers specifically to homes in the database, but he also occasionally shares the addresses of vacant homes on his Instagram account.

Solution or crime? The man admits that “whether that’s true or not is a matter of debate”, but the law graduate reminds his audience that squatting may not be illegal in Australia. “It’s obviously not the ideal solution to Australia’s housing crisis, but it’s clearly angering the rich, and when the rich are angry something is often done,” he says.

Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Nick Champion has already responded to a barrage of messages from the government that it will not tolerate squatting, saying: “It is dangerous and has significant detrimental effects on the housing market. There are often valid reasons why properties appear empty, for example people temporarily away interstate or overseas, properties undergoing renovations or secondary homes acting as holiday homes.

The first houses to appear on the Jordanian base in the United States were met with a swift backlash. There are no half-measures there, with people threatening to watch the listed houses online and shoot anyone who sees them outright, while others have tagged the FBI.

What is Van den Berg looking for? Meanwhile, the lawyer has no illusions about his approach. He told the BBC: “But we’ve had decades of mismanagement that has led to this situation, and what are people doing in the meantime while we focus on political solutions?”

Essentially, what he’s looking for is a backlash, assuring that he wants to provide more protections for renters, implement reforms to lucrative tax incentives for real estate investors, and impose a massive tax on property owners who keep their homes vacant for long periods of time. time periods.

Image | Jordan van den Berg, Purple Wyrm, Shit Rentals, Ed Yourdon

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