Housing Law

3 Key excerpts on "Housing Law"

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  eBook - ePub

  Great Debates in Land Law

  • David Cowan, Lorna Fox O'Mahony, Neil Cobb(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  9 Law, Equality and Housing Introduction In the previous chapter we explored the often complex interaction between the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Human Rights Act 1998, and land law. Here, we built on this discussion by considering the relationship between property interests – especially access to housing – and ‘equalities law’, or the specific statutory protections against unlawful discrimination found in the Equalities Act 2010, which together form a further aspect of the UK’s human rights framework. 1 The 2010 Equality Act (hereinafter the ‘EA’) consolidated and expanded the various complex and fragmented Acts of Parliament, statutory instruments and case law produced since the 1960s as part of the institutional response to the problem of unfair discrimination and inequality in British society, in spheres including race, disability and sexual orientation. One of the most long-standing equalities law protections now found in the EA is the prohibition of unlawful discrimination in relation to housing access, although discrimination in the housing field has been relatively overlooked in legal scholarship compared, for example, to fields like employment. 2 Housing is generally accepted as a basic and universal human need, and so it is unsurprising that discrimination and inequality in the sale, rental or management of residential premises has been typically seen as fundamental to the socio-economic exclusions bound up with the characteristics protected by the EA

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  Housing Law in Scotland

  • Peter Robson(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  REGULATION OF HOUSING 267 8 REGULATION OF HOUSING 267 Regulation, in the form of limitations on what may be done by property owners, has a long history in relation to property. For centuries, there have been, for instance, restrictions on what kind of buildings may be erected and on how property owners may treat their tenants. Buildings required to conform to the rules of the precursors to building regulations, the Dean of Guild Court, 1 as well as with what restrictions might be imposed by feudal conditions. 2 There were also, until 1914, limitations on how some landowners could dispose of their property in terms of the entailing of land. 3 This was finally laid to rest in the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Act 2000. Using one’s land to the detriment of others has long been prohibited in the concept of not acting maliciously against one’s neighbour – aemulatio vicini – and through the common law rules on nuisance. 4 For their part, landlords have long been constrained by the terms of the Leases Act 1449 which gives tenants the right to remain in their property irrespective of a change of landlord for the term of their leases. 5 These limitations were principally restrictive and did not require property owners to do anything other than abstain from unlawful action. The difference with the modern forms of regulation is that owners and landlords require to play an active role in meeting certain standards and tests. Advisers of landlords could in the past expect to be asked to deal with problems after they arose, whereas in the 21st century their role has changed to a proactive one, advising on what requirements must be satisfied by landlords in terms of housing conditions prior to leasing property, the process of registration and the role of landlords in ensuring they avoid being subject to anti-social behaviour notices in respect of their tenants.

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  The Idea of Home in Law

  Displacement and Dispossession

  • Lorna Fox O'Mahony, James A. Sweeney(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  16 In this regard it could probably be said that the law regarding eviction has recently been developed or reformed more or less successfully under the influence of human rights and constitutional law, to a point where arbitrary and grossly unfair evictions are largely prohibited or restrained; where all occupiers of residential property enjoy a certain minimum of procedural protection against eviction; and where tenants and some other lawful occupiers cannot be evicted before the legal basis of their occupation has been terminated lawfully and fairly. In addition, eviction can in certain exceptional cases be prevented permanently or postponed temporarily, regardless of the legality of the occupation and the relative rights of the parties, purely because of justice considerations related to the social and economic context or the personal circumstances of the occupiers.

  Moral, social and doctrinal justifications for these reforms of eviction law have been proposed and discussed over the last few decades. However, my goal in this article is not to discuss the development of eviction law under the influence of human rights instruments and standards, important and fascinating as that subject is.17 For the present, I will simply take it as given that substantial progress has been made in this area and that eviction from residential property is now significantly restrained by constitutional and statutory conditions and requirements. Instead, I wish to focus on instances where residential occupiers are evicted specifically by the state18 and where the state justifies the eviction of individuals and communities from residential property with an appeal to supposedly stronger or more urgent state interests, in a way that might in the long run indirectly undermine the progress that has been made in statutory law regarding eviction of tenants and unlawful occupiers or squatters. From this perspective, the state sometimes relies on and makes use of legislation and common law – and even constitutional and human rights law – not to regulate and impose controls upon eviction, but to reach exactly the opposite effect, namely to facilitate eviction in cases where it is in the interests of the state to vacate (specifically residential)19 premises regardless of the socio-economic context, the personal circumstances of the occupiers or the effect that eviction may have on the occupiers. More specifically, I am interested in instances where the state uses its powers (either of expropriation or of land use regulation) to evict (lawful or unlawful) residential occupiers of land in order to clear the land for purposes of economic development or more beneficial use.20

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