Housing Law Commons^™

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Nyc V. Airbnb: New York City's Attempt To Regulate Home-Sharing Platforms And Airbnb's Attempt To Fight Back, Moshe Goldblatt

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note examines the legal battle between New York City (NYC) and Airbnb over the Homesharing Surveillance Ordinance, arguing that the ordinance violates constitutional rights and federal laws. It suggests that while NYC aims to regulate short-term rentals to address housing issues, the ordinance oversteps by compelling platforms to disclose private information without warrants, infringing on Fourth and First Amendment rights, and violating the Stored Communications Act. The note proposes a balanced approach allowing individuals to rent their homes while curbing commercial exploitation.

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

Reframing Housing: Incorporating Public Law Principles Into Private Law, Kristen Barnes

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

A new public-private law paradigm is developing with respect to the relationship of the state to private contracts. The paradigm melds private law concepts like unconscionability, good faith, and fair dealing with the public human rights principles of dignity and vulnerability. I trace this paradigm shift in the context of the housing law of Spain, where several rich cultural and legal resources have inspired a new sensibility with regard to residential mortgage loan contracts, rental agreements, and the overall duties and obligations of governments to address the citizenry's housing needs. Although this reorientation reflects decisions from the European Court of …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Second Looks & Second Chances, Shon Hopwood

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Things Invisible To See: State Action & Private Property, Joseph William Singer, Isaac Saidel-Goley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article revisits the state action doctrine, a judicial invention that shields “private” or “non-governmental” discrimination from constitutional scrutiny. Traditionally, this doctrine has applied to discrimination even in places of public accommodation, like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Born of overt racial discrimination, the doctrine has inflicted substantial injustice throughout its inglorious history, and courts have continuously struggled in vain to coherently apply the doctrine. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has not fully insulated “private” or “horizontal” relations among persons from constitutional scrutiny. The cases in which it has applied constitutional norms to non-governmental actors should be celebrated rather …

The Current Predatory Nature Of Land Contracts And How To Implement Reforms, Stacy Purcell

Notre Dame Law Review

Because land contracts are frequently inequitable, advocates and legislators have called for enhanced regulation. This Note examines the imbalance of power between sellers and buyers during the formation of land contracts, the ways the law has attempted to lessen the inequality, and how to implement potential reforms. Part II discusses the history of land contracts and their recent resurgence since the 2008 housing crash. Part III explains that while current land contracts are often predatory, land contracts could potentially be a useful way for low-income individuals to become homeowners. Part IV outlines proposed national and state reforms. Part V makes …

Don’T Let The Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability For Bed Bug Infestations In Georgia, Megan M. Harrison

Georgia State University Law Review

Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II. In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned. Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue. Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) consider bed bugs a “pest of significant public health importance."

Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to …

Enforcing A Holding Deposit Agreement, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

Prospective tenants in England are often asked to put down a holding deposit as a condition of signing a tenancy agreement. A holding deposit is an up-front payment given to the landlord or the landlord’s agent to place a “hold” on the property from being rented to anyone else while the applicant’s references are checked. It is paid after the key terms of the tenancy (for example, the rent amount and move-in date) have been agreed. Its purpose is to give both parties peace-of-mind that the applicant is “locked in” to renting the property.

In a previous contribution to the …

Caring For Humanity: Non-Profit Elderly Law, Sierra Samp

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This Capstone was an internship that focused on care in Humanity at Legal Services for Seniors. There is a journal that includes the observations of care in the law office. I focus on how attorneys care for each clients humanness while they are working on their cases. Attorneys may be doing work that can be quite intimidating, but the care they give is quite extraordinary.

Foreclosure Diversion And Mediation In The States, Alan M. White

Georgia State University Law Review

The recent mortgage foreclosure crisis, whose economic effects are well known, transformed state legal structures governing the mortgage foreclosure process. What had been a relatively routine system of default judgments and auction sales has evolved into a negotiation and workout practice in which homeowners contest foreclosures, demand loan modifications and short sales, and propose other alternatives to foreclosures.

A profusion of state laws and court orders were adopted between 2008 and 2014 with the aim of promoting negotiated foreclosure alternatives. These laws have produced a variety of experiments in the “laboratories of democracy.” The defaults—whether home loans are renegotiated, defaults …

The Unfinished Business Of Dodd-Frank: Reforming The Mortgage Contract, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

The standard residential mortgage contract is due for a reappraisal. The goals of Dodd-Frank and the CFPB are geared toward creating better stability in the residential mortgage market, in part, by mandating more robust underwriting. This is achieved chiefly through the ability-to-repay rules and the “qualified mortgage” safe harbor, which call for very conservative underwriting criteria to be applied to new mortgage loans. And lenders are whole-heartedly embracing these criteria in their loan originations — in the fourth quarter of 2015 over 98% of all new residential loans were qualified mortgages, thus resulting in a new wave of credit-worthy homeowners …

Do Community Benefits Agreements Benefit Communities?, Edward W. De Barbieri

Cardozo Law Review

Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) campaigns and public discussions about community benefits are becoming the norm in deciding how large urban projects are built outside of formal public land use approvals. CBAs have revolutionized land use approvals for large, public-private economic development projects: now developers and coalitions representing low-income communities can settle their disputes before formal project approval. As a result, CBAs are now commonplace nationwide.

Legal scholarship, however, has failed to keep up with these important developments. This Article aims to do just that by examining how CBAs, when properly negotiated, lower transaction costs, enhance civic participation, and protect taxpayers. …

Share And Share Dislike: The Rise Of Uber And Airbnb And How New York City Should Play Nice, Alexandra Jonas

Journal of Law and Policy

Uber and Airbnb are two companies in the emerging “sharing economy” that provide individuals with a means to become entrepreneurs and benefit from a laissez-faire business model. The problem, however, is that while the benefits to users are great, so too are the risks. The dangers of operating without restraint and circumventing existing law are not only potentially harmful to unapprised users, but also adversely affect the continued use of these businesses. Every aggrieved user complaint has the potential for a lawsuit and every violation creates an opportunity for penalties. Left over are attempts by the courts and city government …

The Continuing Battle Over Economically Targeted Investments: An Analysis Of The Department Of Labor's Interpretative Bulletin 2015-01, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

In Interpretive Bulletin 2015-01 (IB 2015-01), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) renewed the now two-decades old battle over “economically targeted investments” (ETIs). As a matter of statutory interpretation, IB 2015-01, like its predecessors, is unpersuasive. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) requires plan trustees to invest “solely” to provide participants’ retirement benefits. A trustee who invests in ETIs violates this statutory obligation by pursuing collateral economic benefits for persons other than plan participants. As a matter of policy, the social investing which ETIs exemplify is unsound. At best, such social investing in practice merely shuffles investment …

Banks, Break-Ins, And Bad Actors In Mortgage Foreclosure, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

During the housing crisis banks were confronted with a previously unknown number mortgage foreclosures, and even as the height of the crisis has passed lenders are still dealing with a tremendous backlog. Overtime lenders have increasingly engaged third party contractors to assist them in managing these assets. These property management companies — with supposed expertise in the management and preservation of real estate — have taken charge of a large swathe of distressed properties in order to ensure that, during the post-default and pre-foreclosure phases, the property is being adequately preserved and maintained. But in mid-2013 a flurry of articles …

Apartments And Houses: The Warranty Of Habitability, Walter H.E. Jaeger

Akron Law Review

“The trend towards greater consumer protection so evident in the products liability field is clearly discernible in the sale of new homes by the builder-vendor, and in the leasing of apartments by landlords. Some of the fundamental concepts of real property law, especially those which make no sense in modern society, have been, or are being, overruled and superseded by more enlightened and public policy-minded decisions of both the federal and state courts. It seems safe to predict that the warranty of habitability which governs the sale of new homes by the builder-vendor, adopted by a substantial majority of jurisdictions, …

Holding Deposit Agreements: Pre-Tenancy Obligations And Rights, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

There is confusion in the rental market over the legal significance of holding deposits, which are routinely paid by prospective tenants prior to signing a lease document. The purpose of this article is to clarify the legal position of holding deposit agreements (HDAs) entered into in the pre-tenancy period. In particular, to emphasise that, in the usual course:

• The agreement to, and payment of, a holding deposit creates a binding contract between the prospective tenant and the landlord. • A HDA is a conditional contract, which grants the applicant both the right and obligation to enter into the proposed …

What America Can Learn From Canada's Progressive Decision In Commercial General Liability Policy Coverage Litigation Over Construction Defects, Qifu Li

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note advocates for a more consistent approach in the United States for determining Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance coverage of construction defects, drawing inspiration from Canada's jurisprudence. It critiques the current jurisdictional split in the U.S., where some states cover such defects while others do not, and argues that adopting a uniform approach similar to Canada's three-step framework would reduce legal disputes and align policies with the reasonable expectations of insured parties.

Summary Of Wood V. Germann, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 58, Ryan Becklean

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined one issue: (1) the legal effect of a loan assignment from a homeowner’s original lender to a subsequent purchaser when that assignment violates the terms of the original lender and subsequent purchaser’s Pooling and Servicing Agreement (PSA). More specifically, the court decided whether a loan assignment that is executed after the closing date renders the assignment void and ineffective to transfer ownership of the homeowner’s loan.

Sovereign Debt And The Three And A Half Minute Transaction: What Sticky Boilerplate Reveals About Contract Law And Practice, Andrea Boyack

Faculty Publications

The Three and a Half Minute Transaction: Boilerplate and the Limits of Contractual Design, by Mitu Gulati and Robert E. Scott, is a cautionary tale about modern legal practice where the protagonist is the standard sovereign debt contract. The book discloses an undeniable flaw in sovereign bond boilerplate (the widely used pari passu clause) that, in spite of expensive, sophisticated lawyering, perpetuates a risky disconnect between party intent and contract terms. The fact that boilerplate terms persist even in elite sovereign-lending practices suggests that the problem of over-reliance on standard form language is ubiquitous.When contract terms diverge from client risk …

Dysfunctional Contracts And The Laws And Practices That Enable Them: An Empirical Analysis, 46 Ind. L. Rev. 797 (2013), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Eileen Linnabery

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

While many courts refuse to strike down these clauses under the unconscionability test, this Article argues that the results from the Remedies Experiment should lead courts to adopt a different set of tests for ruling on the enforceability of limitation-of-remedy clauses in home purchase contracts. Part I of this Article highlights the relevant results from two empirical studies Professor Stark conducted regarding major problems with the fairness of purchase agreement forms used by residential real estate developers in Illinois. Part I also discusses the lack of home purchaser understanding of key relevant laws and legal documents examined in an empirical …

Insurance And Cultural Perspectives On Katrina, Jeffrey E. Thomas

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

"Going Green" The Wrong Way: How Governments Are Unconstitutionally Delegating Their Legislative Powers In Pursuit Of Environmental Sustainability, Brandon L. Boxler

Legislation and Policy Brief

Through either executive or legislative power, state and local governments are rapidly effecting policies that encourage environmental sustainability.  Many of these policies have logically targeted buildings and infrastructure, both of which have a significant adverse impact on the environment.  In the United States, 38 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions and 67 percent of its electricity usage come from buildings.  New laws and policies are attempting to decrease these figures by requiring construction projects to “go green” and implement sustainable building practices.  These legal initiatives have the potential to create substantial environmental benefits by reducing energy consumption, greenhouse gas …

Order For The Courts: Reforming The Nollan/Dolan Threshold Inquiry For Exactions, Winfield B. Martin

Seattle University Law Review

For decades prior to 2005, Fifth Amendment regulatory takings jurisprudence languished in a state of confused neglect. Rather than articulating a clearly discernable standard for determining whether a violation of the Takings Clause had occurred, Justices rebuffed government action that seemed to amount to “an out-and-out plan of extortion” and nodded in approval when they deemed the government to have “acted diligently and in good faith” or in furtherance of a “compelling interest.” In trying to parse this imprecise thicket, scholars have characterized the Court’s approach to regulatory takings as a “muddle,” in “disarray,” and “incoherent.” Professor Kent even noted …