Law Commons^™

Encouraging Cooperation: Harmonizing The Battle Of Association And Mortgagee Lien Priority In America’S Common Interest Communities, Christian J. Bromley

Christian J Bromley

As the United States grappled with millions of foreclosures in recent years, the delinquency of mortgage and community association payments threatened the sustainability of over 300,000 common interest communities that house 63.4 million Americans. When owners of residential property fall behind on mortgage and association assessments, a battle for lien priority emerges between the associations and mortgagees. Each respectively holds a lien on the property to secure the debt owed to them, but it is the priority of these liens that determines the amount the lienholder recovers from a foreclosure sale. There is no uniform approach to priority in the …

The Political Fragmentation Of Land Use Governance In Santiago, Chile, And Its Implications For Socioeconomic Residential Segregation, Diego Gil Mc Cawley

Diego Gil Mc Cawley

Despite decades of economic development and the general improvement in the quality of life of its people, Santiago, the capital of Chile, presents high levels of residential segregation along socioeconomic lines. A debate about legal reforms to address this phenomenon is currently occurring. Existing Chilean research suggests that the current pattern of urban segregation has been caused by social housing policies based on the provision of subsidies to homeless people implemented in the last decades. However, foreign literature, especially in the United States, indicates that residential segregation is also influenced by land use legal structure and practices. This latter factor …

‘Peter Pan’ As Public Policy: Should Fifty-Five-Plus Age- Restricted Communities Continue To Be Exempt From Civil Rights Laws And Substantive Federal Regulation?, Mark D. Bauer

Mark D Bauer

Although millions of Americans live in 55-plus age-restricted housing, little research has been done to determine whether these communities benefit their residents, or the nation as a whole. This is particularly ironic because these communities exist in contravention to anti-discrimination laws by virtue of a specific exemption granted to real estate developers by an Act of Congress. Ordinarily age discrimination is prohibited by the Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Successful lobbying by special interest groups carved out an exemption for 55-plus housing.

The original exemption required developers to offer elders special services and …

Adverse Possession, Private-Zoning Waiver & Desuetude: Abandonment & Recapture Of Property And Liberty Interests, Scott A. Shepard

Scott A. Shepard

Adverse-possession doctrine labors under a pair of disabilities: a hesitancy by theorists to embrace the abandonment-and-recapture principle that informs the doctrine, and a substantial unwillingness of governments to abandon an antiquated and outmoded maxim shielding them from the doctrine’s important work. Removing these disabilities will allow a series of positive outcomes. First, it will demonstrate that all would-be adverse possessors, not just those acting “in good faith” or with possessory intent, should enjoy the fruits of the doctrine. Second, it will provide valuable additional means by which the public may monitor the performance of government employees, and additional discipline to …