Yeah that is what it certainly feels like. Good to get a grasp of what this is like across the pond.

It definitely sounds familiar to some States adopting Squatters rights:

I enjoy watching some YouTube channels of people in California annoying/torturing squatters out of the residence(or at least trying to).

As well as I came across a desperate elderly man from NewYorkState who was trying to evict squatters. Iirc, he was being threatened to be arrested by the state for not complying with the health and safety statutes for his non-paying “tenants”.

So instead of wasting more money paying fines, he went to the property, called the police, and set himself on fire in protest. They saved his wife, but he and the property were burnt to the ground.

It was a painful video to witness, but that was all the evidence I needed to grasp just how unjust this type of State involvement in rental properties really is, and the type of desperation it produces.