Can I occupy and run my business from a disused commercial building?

There is a disused warehouse close to where I live which has been empty for five years, I have been unable to trace the owner.
I wish to use the space for storage of vehicles for my business. I have had problems with vandals damaging cars in their present locaion
Can I use the space if I look after the building and what are the consquences of this action. Will the owner be able to force entry and damage my property ie my vehicles

I cant believe how self-righteous the people above are. Wannabe know it alls.

Have you ever heard of the famous saying 'posession is nine tenths of the law'. What you could be looking at is obtaining that property by adverse posession. Basically through putting it to use you are claiming a right on the property. If you can prove you have exclusively used and maintained the property for at least 12 years then you can claim entitlement to it through adverse posession. You would have to apply to thr relevant government authority to do this. However within the initial 12 year period the real owner could challenge your right to the property. Im pretty sure they could not damage your property - they would be liable for criminal damage charges. They would have to challenge you through the courts.

I studied English property law a long time ago. That is a pretty rough assessment. My advice is talk to your solicitor about it.

best bet is to get in touch with your local council and see who owns the building e.g private owner or council. if you park vehicles on the property with out consent then you are breaking numerous laws and the owner would have the right to have every single car removed.

you cannot use the property without permission.
yes the owner can go in, it is THEIR property
they probably could say ok the rent on this place is $500 per day, pay up for the time you have been here if you want your cars back.

go to city hall or wherever your city or county keeps records and look up the owner

maybe they will rent it to you cheap if they are not using it anyway.
besides it is a business deduction! what kind of poor business is it if it cannot pay for storage area?


how would you like it if you went to your property and it was full of someone elses vehicles?

The person above is right. You cannot declare someone else's property to be abandoned (which is essentially what you'd be doing here), just because you haven't found the owner. Someone pays property taxes on it. Go to the county tax assessors office with the address of the property and look it up. This should lead you to the proper people to ask for either a sale or a lease or just plain permission to use the building for storage. At this point in time you also don't know what's going on behind the scenes for that building, if anything. The building may be scheduled for remodeling, removal, or be torn down for a development purpose, or there may be someone else currently working with the owner to lease space. It's very much in your best interest to locate the proper person to do business with.

With adverse possession, you must prove that you have occupied the building for an unbroken period of 12 years; that means you must have something like 12 years of electricity bills in your name.
Some local councils are able to force landlords to maintain and use/rent out empty buildings. I'm not sure if this just applies to dwellings or not.
If you use the building you could be charged with breaking and entering, you really need to get proper legal advice.