Tenancy vs. Ownership Rights. Housing Rent Control in Southeast and East-Central Europe, 1918 – 1928

TLDR: In this paper, the authors compared the specific social and legal implications of state intervention in the housing sector in the countries considered as European economic periphery, based on relevant primary and secondary sources, and investigated effects and outcomes of state involvement with housing tenancy by taking into account concrete evidence from the everyday practice of the implementation of housing legislation.

Abstract: 51 This paper deals with a particular aspect of the huge structural economic and social changes caused by the first global war. Based on relevant primary and secondary sources, it focuses on the comparison of the specific social and legal implications of the stateinterventionist practices in the housing sector in the countries considered as European economic periphery. The system was founded under the war circumstances when securing the welfare of conscripts’ families against excessive demands of landlords became a priority of the belligerents’ domestic policies. Gradually, these measures were evolving towards ever more elaborated protection of almost all tenant groups during and after the war. It is important to stress that such a large-scale state intervention in the domain of housing tenancy was introduced for the first time in modern history. Interwar Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland have been chosen to represent respective Southeastand East-Central European regions for some specific features of the housing policies conducted by their authorities. In the first place, these fragile states, accounting for lack of institutional capacities and weak governance, turned out to be the most interventionist and to carry out the most intensive schemes of state intervention in housing rental market in Europe (Russia excluded). In addition, these countries displayed a rather distinctive dynamics of implementation and abandonment of housing rent controls when compared with other European countries and regions. In addition to the elaboration of the main features of the housing Rent Control System (RCS), this paper also deals with unwanted consequences of its long-term application in the four countries under review. It investigates effects and outcomes of the state involvement with housing tenancy by taking into account concrete evidence from the everyday practice of the implementation of housing legislation. The concentration is focused on obvious abuses, anomalies, and deficiencies in the system, which compromised its very foundations. Particularly, the paper will shed light on development of conception of tenancy right as confronted with previous sacrosanct concept of property ownership. The study will reconsider the general notion of a tenant-protection program being justified as a protection of those who were “economically weak” against exploitation of the “economically strong”. It will provide facts and analyses on how the system evolved and how its most important features were altered by the daily routines of life. The study is almost completely written on previously unexplored primary sources. Taking into account a somewhat disappointing experience with the findings of research in the national Tenancy vs. Ownership Rights. Housing Rent Control in Southeast and East-Central Europe, 1918 – 1928