Housing Law Commons^™

Implementation Of Housing Rights In South Africa: Approaches And Strategies, Lilian Chenwi

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Ensuring access to adequate housing, especially for the poor and disadvantaged in society, including those faced with evictions and displacement, continues to be a global challenge. The situation remains critical in South Africa, with many poor households living in difficult conditions, facing the risk of eviction and unable to access adequate housing. This is despite the myriad of progressive housing laws, jurisprudence, policies and programs that exist in South Africa. Notwithstanding the challenges that the country faces in ensuring the effective realization of the right to adequate housing, as illustrated in this article, lessons can be learnt from its approaches …

Fighting For The Right To Housing In Canada, Tracy Heffernan, Fay Faraday, Peter Rosenthal

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This paper examines Tanudjaja v Attorney General—the “Right to Housing” case. The authors, co-counsel on the case, discuss the context of the case, the nature of the application, and the legal underpinnings of the section 7 and 15 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms claims, including positive obligations under the Charter and international law, innovative procedure taking a systemic approach to challenging oppressive legislation, and innovative supervisory orders. The authors examine the procedural and substantive implications of the provincial and federal governments’ move to strike the case, parse the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and Ontario Court of Appeal decisions …

Welcome To The Village: An Analysis Of How St. Louis County Occupancy Permit Schemes Perpetuate Segregation And Violate The Constitution, Zachary Schmook, Lauren Verseman

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Equal Justice: How Establishing A Right To Counsel For People Who Face Losing Their Homes Helps Tackle Economic Inequality, Andrew Scherer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Charter Eviction: Litigating Out Of House And Home, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

The case of Tanudjaja v Attorney General (Canada) takes up the cause of housing rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a novel and complex way. The government actions and inactions cited as constitutional breaches and the broad remedial requests reflect the “pixelated” picture of housing concerns necessary to understanding Canada’s housing security crisis. In dismissing the challenge at a preliminary stage, the Ontario Superior and Appeal Courts risk rendering the Charter irrelevant to the deep social justice concerns that cross our country. More specifically, formulaic judicial invocation of concerns about positive rights and justiciability leave the …

Poverty, Dignity, And Public Housing, Jaime Alison Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Antipoverty efforts are persistently subverted by broad societal contempt for poor people. The belief that poor people are morally and behaviorally inferior, and that their personal failings are the cause of their own poverty, is a staple of American opinion polls and political rhetoric. This presumption is so widespread that it even permeates antipoverty programs, which treat poor people with disdain even as they offer aid and assistance.

Income discrimination creates not just social stigma, but legal inequalities. The Supreme Court recognized some forty years ago that welfare law promoted wealth-based Constitutional inequalities, and responded by invoking the doctrines of …

Equity In Substantial Evidence, Or Using Article 78 Judicial Review To Achieve Justice For Public Housing Occupants, Janelle Greene

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Arrests As Regulation, Eisha Jain

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For some arrested individuals, the most important consequences of their arrest arise outside the criminal justice system. Arrests alone—regardless of whether they result in conviction—can lead to a range of consequences, including deportation, eviction, license suspension, custody disruption, or adverse employment actions. But even as courts, scholars, and others have drawn needed attention to the civil consequences of criminal convictions, they have paid relatively little attention to the consequences of arrests in their own right. This article aims to fill that gap by providing an account of how arrests are systemically used outside the criminal justice system. Noncriminal justice actors …

The Politics Of Chinese Land: Partial Reform, Vested Interests And Small Property, Shitong Qiao

Faculty Scholarship

This paper investigates the evolution of the Chinese land regime in the past three decades and focus on one question: why has the land use reform succeeded in the urban area, but not in the rural area? Through asking this question, it presents a holistic view of Chinese land reform, rather than the conventional "rural land rights conflict" picture. This paper argues that the so­called rural land problem is the consequence of China's partial land use reform. In 1988, the Chinese government chose to conduct land use reform sequentially: first urban and then rural. It was a pragmatic move because …

Supreme Court, New York County, Robinson V. Finkel, Denise Shanley

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Are Local Governments Responding To Student Rental Problems In University Towns In The United States, Canada, And England?, Jack S. Frierson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

American Dream In Flux: The Endangered Right To Lease A Home, Andrea Boyack

Faculty Publications

Homeownership in the US is on the decline and the percentage of the population that rents their residence is growing. Renters present a distinct demographic compared to owners, and most of the more vulnerable segments of society rent their homes. But the law prohibits renting a home in some neighborhoods. Occasionally, zoning provisions hamper the ability of would-be tenants and would-be landlords to rent. More typically, however, community restrictive covenants are what block rentals. Zoning prohibitions on rentals have been attacked as violations of property rights. But in condominiums and other privately governed neighborhoods, segregation of renters from owner occupants …

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.

A Tightrope Over Both Your Houses: Ensuring Party Participation And Preserving Mediation's Core Values In Foreclosure Mediation, Heather Scheiwe Kulp

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article focuses on the laws made for regulating the party's participation in preserving the principles of mediation for the resolution of disputes related to the foreclosure crisis. Topics discussed include the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the housing and domestic markets, the impact of foreclosures on the sales and price value of the houses and the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the economic conditions of the local communities.

Dwelling Together: Using Cooperative Housing To Abate The Affordable Housing Shortage In Canada And The United States, Jennifer Cohoon Mcscotts

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of Unconscious And Institutional Discrimination In The United States And Britain, Leland Ware

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

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.

The Threat To Interest-Free Home Financing: The Problem Of State Governments' Prohibition Of Islamic-Compliant Financing Agreements, Matt Anderson

Hamline Law Review

abstract

A Layperson's Guide To Fair Housing Law (2014), F. Willis Caruso, Michael P. Seng, Allison Bethel, John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center

Faculty White Papers

Housing discrimination can take many forms. Laws have been passed at the federal, state, and local levels to prohibit housing discrimination, and attorneys and many fair housing groups are working to eradicate the problem. But the solution to the fair housing problem will not come solely through the work of attorneys and fair housing agencies and organizations; it will also have to come from an educated public that is unwilling to tolerate the cost of housing discrimination. Housing discrimination affects every individual in the United States. Realtors and brokers, bankers and mortgage lenders, insurance companies and developers, real estate buyers …

Discriminatory Maintenance Of Reo Properties As A Violation Of The Federal Fair Housing Act, Stephen M. Dane, Tara Ramchandani, Anne P. Bellows

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Home With Dignity: Domestic Violence And Property Rights, Margaret E. Johnson

BYU Law Review

This Article argues that the legal system should do more to address intimate partner violence and each party’s need for a home for several reasons. First, domestic violence is a leading cause of individual and family homelessness. Second, the struggle over rights to a shared home can increase the violence to which the woman is subjected. And third, a woman who decides to continue to live with the person who abused her receives little or no legal support, despite the evidence that this decision could most effectively reduce the violence. The legal system’s current failings result from its limited goals—achieving …

Treading Water: Can Municipal Efforts To Condemn Underwater Mortgages Prevail?, Michael S. Moskowitz

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Impact Of The Home Affordable Modification Program In Response To The Foreclosure Crisis: Why Real Estate Securitization Demands A New Approach, John Kinney

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

This case presents an unfortunate, but all too common set of circumstances in the world today. Plaintiff is a homeowner in financial distress who seeks a loan modification from an unresponsive bank relying on an ineffectual federal program. This statement, by Magistrate Lois Bloom in Rivera v. Bank of America, best captures the utter frustration felt by financially distressed homeowners and sympathetic judges regarding the government's failed efforts to stem the foreclosure crisis. Heard countless times in thousands of courtrooms across the country in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial meltdown, Magistrate Bloom expressed what seemed deliberate efforts by …

Complex Decision-Making And Cognitive Aging Call For Enhanced Protection Of Seniors Contemplating Reverse Mortgages, 46 Ariz. St. L.J. 299 (2014), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Joseph Mikels, Amber Schonbrun Mcdonnell

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes the factors that affect the effectiveness of the current rules and counseling protocol in enabling seniors to make well-informed decisions on whether to enter into a proposed reverse mortgage in light of the cognitive barriers that consumers in general, and seniors in particular, face. The article then proposes further changes to these rules and the counseling protocol to better enable seniors to determine whether entering into reverse mortgages is in their best interest in light of their specific financial situations and goals. Section I provides an overview of the current status of the law relating to reverse …

Turning Restitution Upside-Down: The Mortgage Fraud Restitution Formula Amidst Volatile Housing Prices, Nicole Scott

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reliance In Land Use Law, Kenneth A. Stahl

BYU Law Review

For generations, Americans have tapped their life savings and assumed huge amounts of debt in order to achieve the American dream of owning their own home. Though investing so heavily in a single asset is a rather risky move on its face, buyers have been induced to purchase homes by a slew of public policies, most notably zoning ordinances that buffer single-family neighborhoods against an invasion of unwanted uses. As a result, homeowners have a fairly convincing argument that they possess some sort of vested reliance interest in the existing zoning of their neighborhoods that should prevent municipal authorities from …

Re-Evaluating The Role Of Companion Animals In The Era Of The Aging Boomer, Rebecca J. Huss

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Settlement Equals Another Missed Opportunity For The Supreme Court To Define Disparate Impact Claims Under The Fair Housing Act, Erika Flaschner

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

In 2003, the New Jersey Township of Mount Holly designated a neighborhood known as the Gardens as a blighted, high crime area, and called for its redevelopment. The Township adopted a plan to demolish the Gardens and replace it with new residential units, of which only a fraction were designated for affordable housing. However, the predominately minority population of the Gardens filed suit to overturn the blight designation and stop the redevelopment plan on the grounds that the plan violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) on a disparate impact theory.

Alcohol- And Drug-Free Housing: A Key Strategy In Breaking The Cycle Of Addiction And Recidivism, Susan F. Mandiberg, Richard L. Harris

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dodd-Frank 2.0: Creating Interactive Home-Loan Disclosures To Enable Shrewd Consumer Decision-Making, 27 Loy. Consumer L. Rev. 95 (2014), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Mark A. Leboeuf, Andrew Pizor

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

In Section I, we summarize and analyze the Dodd-Frank laws that were enacted to regulate home loan terms and the key changes made to the home loan disclosure rules and forms, critiquing in particular the changes made to the APR component of the new CFPB disclosure form. In Section II, we detail and report on the methods and results from two APR Experiments we conducted (one using eyetracking technology to see which areas of the disclosure form participants were looking at and for how long); we also report on the low level of financial literacy of the participants reflected in …