And yet it happens all the time. There are many units in my city in very desirable locations that have been empty for a long time. Often they do temporarily allow people to live there ('anti-squat'), but they can be kicked out at a month's notice and have basically no rights.

What makes this so frustrating is that anyone moving to the city has to either pay exorbitant amounts of money for tiny apartments or rooms, or live far out of the center.