Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 2014"

Inhabitance, place-making and the right to the city: public housing redevelopment in Sydney

Abstract: This article brings Lefebvre's Right to the City thesis into conversation with Bauman's notion of the flawed consumer to account for the neoliberal colonisation of public tenant organising in urban redevelopment. Drawing on a case study of public housing redevelopment from Sydney, Australia, we show that neoliberal community building and the emergence of professional community builders obviate the self-organising efforts of tenants. In this case tenants’ rights were attenuated when the housing authority invited private capital to not only rebuild the physical fabric but also remake the social relations around public tenancy within the trope of consumerism. We argue for a revival of tenant self-organising as a collective political project that might counteract the individualisation of tenants’ rights under neoliberal community building regimes. Such a political project needs to be extended beyond the boundaries of the local neighbourhood or ‘housing estate’ to expose the strategies at work in public housin...

Social housing exits: incidence, motivations and consequences

Abstract: Explores the factors influencing tenant choices to remain in or depart from public housing. Executive summary Aims Falling tenancy turnover rates over the last decade have resulted in declining vacancies available to applicants in high need. To address this, State Housing Authorities (SHAs) are seeking ways to promote the exit of existing tenants no longer deemed as in high need of housing assistance. Yet little evidence is available about the motivations for tenants to stay in, or exit, the social housing sector, and the outcomes of such exits. The aim of this study, therefore, was to identify the factors which prompt or deter tenant-initiated moves out of social housing and the factors influencing the sustainability of such moves. The study For simplicity, the empirical investigation focused on public housing under direct State Housing Authority (SHA) management, as a proxy for all social housing in Australia. A mix of qualitative and quantitative methods were employed, including: Administrative records on tenant exits in 2012–13 was collected from all but one (Northern Territory) Australian SHAs, allowing comparison of national trends and inter-jurisdictional variation. Using tenancy records provided by SHAs in NSW and Victoria, a cohort analysis of tenancies commencing in 2007 has been conducted, examining for each subsequent year the proportion of tenancies still intact and, of those, the proportion where the rent had been significantly raised in response to increased tenant/household income. Data from the HILDA dataset was analysed to provide a longitudinal perspective on the circumstances of households in the years before and after an exit. A survey of 573 current public housing tenants in four selected areas in Victoria and NSW—including a metropolitan and a regional area in each—allowed analysis of their intentions to stay or exit social housing. In-depth interviews were held with a total of 95 participants representing three distinct subgroups—current tenants in their first public housing tenancy (36), tenants having re-entered public housing for a second (or subsequent) time (21), and former tenants who have exited public housing up to one year prior to the interview (38).

Renting shacks: Landlords and tenants in the informal housing sector in Johannesburg South Africa

Abstract: Renting is a common form of tenure in many developing countries in the global south. This is due to a housing shortage in these countries and has led to a situation where the vast majority of individuals in major cities find accommodation in the rental market. This situation can be put down to the difficulty to entering the market as a homeowner. While this condition is found in much of the formal housing market in the global south, little has been explored in the informal housing market. This state of affairs has pushed many residence in informal settlements into the rental market. This paper examines the rental market in informal settlements in Johannesburg, South Africa by conducting a qualitative investigation into the experiences of landlords (n = 11) and tenants (n = 15) in three informal settlements in Johannesburg. Overall, there is an asymmetric relationship between the two actors within this market, with the perception that landlords, who view their role as noble provider, impose arbitrary rental terms on tenants in an illegal tenancy market.

Demand Uncertainty, Development Timing and Leasehold Land Valuation: Empirical Testing of Real Options in Residential Real Estate Development

Abstract: This article develops and tests a long-dated American call option pricing model for valuing development land under leasehold. We analyze and test option values in ten detailed Hong Kong cases involving purchase, holding, converting and developing land. We also test for optimal exercise of long-dated American calls using processes based on the optimal trigger ratio feature of the perpetual American call option model. Generally, the empirical results confirm presence of a positive and nontrivial option premium (mean +5.274%) in the cases, and that developers appear to delay exercise to the point predicted by the real options model.

Time-Related Characteristics of Tenancy Contracts and Investment in Soil Conservation Practices

Abstract: We present a dynamic model that shows how different types of land tenancy contracts and their time-related characteristics influence farmers’ decisions to invest in soil improvement and productive inputs. Using recent household and plot-level data from the Brong-Ahafo Region in Ghana, we analyze the impact of land tenancy arrangements, contract duration, as well as the number of times the contract has been renewed in the past on the intensity of investment in soil conservation measures such as ditches and farmyard manure and productive inputs like chemical fertilizer. The empirical findings generally confirm the predictions of the theoretical model and reveal that the intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given farmer varies significantly with the type of tenancy arrangement on the plot as well as the time-related characteristics of the contract.

Environmental Duty of Care: From Ethical Principle Towards a Code of Practice for the Grazing Industry in Queensland (Australia)

Abstract: Among the options of government for reducing negative environmental externalities from agriculture is the institution of a polluter statutory liability. An environmental duty of care imposes a statutory liability on agents who interact with the environment to avoid causing environmental harm. This paper documents environmental duty of care provisions governing landholders in Queensland, Australia, with specific reference to the 2007 Queensland State Rural Leasehold Land Strategy. The paper reports on a positive response by a group of leaseholders within the Northern Gulf Region in Queensland who developed a prototype environmental code of practice for grazing—a land use not previously covered by such an institution in Australia. The paper concludes that (1) a statutory environmental duty of care and specific forms of leasehold tenure are elements of an effective strategy for implementing an agricultural environmental ethics in north Australia’s rangelands and (2) a grazing industry code of practice is a practical and important tool for the grazing industry to safeguard its social licence to operate.

Security of tenure in social housing in England

Abstract: The Localism Act 2011 granted social landlords in England the right to award fixed-term (flexible) tenancies, thereby ending the right of new tenants to a secure tenancy. Reform was justified via reference to a revisionist critique of social housing, which accused security of tenure of promoting dependency, undercutting social mobility and preventing the effective operation of the sector as a welfare service. This article draws on empirical evidence from qualitative interviews with more than 140 social tenants to explore the legitimacy of these claims and consider the potential impact of ending security of tenure on the well-being of tenants. Analysis reveals security of tenure to be a source of stability that helps mediate the precariousness of life on low incomes. In conclusion, it is argued that policy should be looking to extend, rather than curtail, these benefits through an improved rental housing offer.

Estate management and institutional constraints in pre‐industrial England: the ecclesiastical estates of Durham, c. 1400–1640

Abstract: This article explores how far estate management and institutional constraints help to explain the transformations of rural society in England from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The monks of Durham Cathedral Priory and the bishops of Durham faced many of the same exogenous pressures in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but they responded differently to these challenges. By the seventeenth century all of the dean and chapter's lands were consolidated holdings on 21-year leases, whereas a confused mixture of copyhold and leasehold land had developed on the bishops' estate. This had a significant impact upon the challenges and opportunities facing their tenants. Institutional constraints were often crucial factors in the transformation of the English countryside: these two neighbouring ecclesiastical estates faced broadly the same problems and yet the composition of their estates diverged significantly across this period, having a profound effect not only on levels of rent, but also on the tenure of holdings and ultimately their relative size; three of the most important factors in the formation of agrarian capitalism. This article also argues that how rural society adapted to the fifteenth-century recession greatly affected the ability of their sixteenth-century counterparts to respond to inflation.

Hong Kong's Gating Machine

Abstract: Scholars have identified ‘gating machines’ or ‘gating coalitions’ that promote gated communities. Hong Kong's high-rise housing estates in the private sector are extremely gated. Evidence presented in this paper suggests the proposition that public ownership of land, Hong Kong's land leasehold system and the government's fiscal interest in generating maximum revenue from land sales play a pivotal role in explaining gatedness. The big developers prefer and pay premiums for large sites that permit mixed use developments and high site intensity, which by use regulations are required to be gated, while their property management subsidiaries also promote gating because such estates are cheaper and easier to manage. Thus, the extent of gatedness is largely the consequence of Hong Kong's use of land as a resource, its built form, the nature of its real estate and property management industries, and the articulation of these factors.

Progressing tenancy management reform on remote Indigenous communities

Abstract: Housing reforms in remote Indigenous communities have resulted in a variety of tenancy management arrangements involving state, community and private housing sectors This project identified different models of tenancy management, considered their housing outcomes, and shared the policy and practice lessons across jurisdictions • This project involved convening an Investigative Panel comprising non-Indigenous and Indigenous experts on tenancy management from the research, policy and practitioner communities The project authors also visited four remote Indigenous communities in Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia in between the two panel meetings Until recently, housing in remote indigenous areas was largely provided by Indigenous Community Housing Organisations (ICHOs) ICHOs were often small kin-based organisations, whose tenancy management practices differed from the standardised bureaucratic practices of state and territory housing authorities However, concerns over past failings of housing management in the ICHO sector led to management being transferred to state and territory housing authorities The National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing (NPARIH) has involved capital works improvements and tenancy management reforms Queensland and South Australia opted to manage remote Indigenous social housing assets directly, while the Northern Territory and Western Australia have combined direct management with third party arrangements (either contracting to ICHOs, Shire Councils or Community Housing Organisations) The heavy reliance on the state directly managing this program is attributable to political pressure to deliver to tight timetables, and the likely time delays, increased resources and political complications involved in outsourcing to external organisations without good governance practices in place At its half-way mark, the NPARIH reforms have succeeded in negotiating more formal tenancy agreements, allocations that are more needs based, increased rent collections and improved maintenance systems However, to achieve high quality housing services, more sustainable and appropriate models will need to be developed to improve tenant education, rent setting and collection, Indigenous workforce recruitment and skills development, asset protection, and leveraging further local employment from tenant support arrangements Future policy and planning around sustainable remote tenancy management should involve: Promoting awareness of the link between tenancy management and capital works, so that local communities (‘users’) are involved in the planning, design and construction phases Supporting incremental development and action learning, since expertise about Indigenous communities amongst planners, policy-makers and administrators was often minimal Fostering good relationships with local communities—for example, Indigenous partners should be engaged to improve a Housing Authority’s legitimacy and trust in the community Improving governance in NGOs to empower remote communities and enable local communities to play a larger future role Understanding the costs and cost drivers of managing housing in remote areas, especially in the context of the end of current NPARIH funding

TENLAW: Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Multi-level Europe - National Report for Denmark

Abstract: • You may download this work for personal use only. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying this open access version If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details and we will investigate your claim. Please direct all enquiries to puresupport@bib.sdu.dk

The Resettlement of Homeless Young People: Their Experiences and Housing Outcomes

Abstract: This article reports the experiences of 109 homeless people aged seventeen to twenty-five years in England who were resettled into independent accommodation during 2007/08. It focuses on housing, finances, employment and access to support services. After fifteen/eighteen months, 69 per cent of the young people were still in their original accommodation, 13 per cent had moved to another tenancy and 18 per cent no longer had a tenancy. Most were glad to have been resettled but found the transition very challenging, particularly with regard to managing finances and finding stable employment. The prevalence of debts increased substantially over time, and those who moved to private-rented accommodation had the poorest outcomes. People who had been in temporary accommodation more than twelve months prior to resettlement were more likely to retain a tenancy, while a history of illegal drug use and recent rough sleeping were associated negatively with tenancy sustainment.

The Localism Act 2011: The Hollow Housing Law Revolution

Abstract: In November 2011, the Localism Act was passed and, on one view, reflects the widest-ranging reforms to housing law for over a half century. Ambitious in its stated aims, the legislation was trailed as representing a broad shift in power from central Whitehall to local communities and individuals. The article critically examines the central changes introduced by the 2011 Act as they pertain specifically to housing law in England, namely the new flexible tenancy regime, the changes to homelessness duties under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 and the reforms concerning the allocation of social housing. The article interrogates the extent to which the reforms realise the stated localist agenda and highlights areas of difficulty in interpretation and application. It concludes that rather than bestowing greater power on local communities, the reforms to housing law will instead effect a perceptible reduction of power in the hands of local people.

Long-Run Discounting: Evidence from the UK Leasehold Valuation Tribunal

Abstract: The United Kingdom's Leasehold Valuation Tribunal hears extension and enfranchisement cases between landlords (freeholders) and tenants (leaseholders). In these cases, the two parties argue about the terms of housing lease extensions of up to 90 years in length, and about enfranchisements to convert leasehold contracts of specific durations to perpetual ownership freeholds. The widely-followed decisions of the leasehold valuation tribunal provide a unique insight into household-level variation in expectations of long-run discount rates and cash-flows, and set bounds on the prices that market participants may be willing to pay for housing over long periods of time. We use the record of decisions since 1995 to extract information about long-run cash-flow and discount rate expectations in this unique setting, which requires no estimation, but has real stakes for the participants in these negotiations. We find evidence that the discount rate associated with these decisions causes values of properties discounted for long periods (above 90 years) to be close to zero.

Cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in southeast nigeria: implication for agricultural transformation agenda

Abstract: Cultural issues have had significant influence in rural household economies, which over the years depend strongly on agriculture. Such issues come to the fore in the face of emerging innovations for agricultural transformation. The study analyzed the cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in Southeast Nigeria, highlighting their implication for Agricultural transformation agenda. The specific objectives of the study were to identify the predominant livelihood strategies of rural households and analyze the cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households in the study area. With the aid of a structured and validated interview schedule, data were collected from a sample size of 180 household heads selected from a population of 754,702 household heads in the study area using a 5–stage random sampling procedure. The statistical tools used in data analysis included mean, frequencies, percentages and factor analysis. The result indicated that the predominant agricultural livelihood strategies found among rural households in southeast Nigeria includes crop farming, livestock farming, farm labour, farm product processing, among others while the predominant non-agricultural livelihood strategies includes petty trading, remittances from relatives, civil service among others. The cultural factors affecting livelihood strategies of rural households the study area were identified as: exclusive traditional role of household heads as income earner (mean = 2.92, the pressure of large household size on household resource base limits resource mobilization (mean = 3.21), gender gaps in access to productive factors (mean = 3.15), limited women involvement in productive activities (mean = 2.89), limited women access to social services and amenities (mean = 2.89), exclusive property rights for male members of the household (mean = 3.19), among others. Factor analysis result showed 3 major factor loadings that affect livelihood strategies of rural households in the study area as high dependency on household head, culture-based inequalities, and traditional gender-based property rights. It is therefore recommended that land use decree, tenancy and other property rights should be reviewed, modified and introduced into rural areas to improve access to land and other productive resources especially to enable women and youth pursue their livelihood interests, which depend critically on such resources.

Debt and Its Social Entrapments

Abstract: Between 1997 and 2012, nearly two hundred thousand agriculturists committed suicide in India.1 Most official reports, studies, and testimonials considered indebtedness and the burdens of debt defaulting to be the key reasons for such distress.2 Yet indebtedness is not just an economic factor but also a social condition that marks the life-worlds of victims and their families. Debt, as part of the capitalization of agriculture and rural economies, is a signal aspect of the circuits of capital and is promoted as an inevitable process of economic growth and productivity. Even as debt forges new relationships between creditors and debtors, it generates a cultural grammar in which "repayment," "interest," "mortgage," "deferment," "reclaim," "seizure," and so on become part of the lexicon of the everyday life of debtors. In the telling words of Margaret Atwood, debt as a "human construct mirrors and magnifies both voracious human desire and ferocious human fear" (2008,2). And in the life-worlds of marginal agriculturists, whose already tenuous economic position is made more vulnerable by debt, the entrapments of indebtedness become the final straw that destroys their very reason for living.The increasing integration of agriculturists into the market economy has led to reordering the cultural basis of Indian agriculture.3 Although it is well known and an established fact that the agrarian system has long been hierarchical, with caste-based allocation of rights over land and its resources, regional agricultural practices were conducted on a pattern of collectively shared knowledge forms and rhythms. Such agricultural patterns were also marked by shared agricultural knowledge and linked to local cultural patterns.4 Regional or agro-ecology-specific agriculture was based on a society-nature relationship in which society relied on a corpus of collective knowledge to appropriate nature within a range of hierarchical social and economic structures and relationships. While the structure of social activities was itself linked to the ecological and agricultural cycles, the key idioms and terms of cultural life were drawn from and linked to agricultural activities.5 Even as agriculture was based on differential rights and status, it provided a larger collective identity to a range of people who performed different functions in its processes. In addition, as studies (Amin 1982; Breman 2007) have elaborated, agriculture in India drew on a network of relationships in which cooperation and extension of assistance for a range of activities formed part of the production processes themselves.But the changes induced by the capitalization of agriculture and the retained caste-based social bases of production have altered this collective orientation and exacerbated the multiple risks that most agriculturists face.6 This is particularly so for marginal agriculturists whose precarious economic position is worsened by the risks of the new capitalist order. As marginal cultivators, their position in the local and macro economy is one of marginality, not merely from their ownership or cultivation of limited plots and sizes of land (with an average of only 1.33 hectares per cultivating household) but also from the marginal political and social position they occupy in the immediate and larger political economies of the nation. What Sanyal (2007) and Akhram-Lodhi and Kay (2009) identify as markers of marginality is valid for all the households that experienced suicides. These markers include not only access to or ownership of limited landholding, but marginal cultivators also suffer from insecurity of ownership and tenancy, produce for both consumption and sale, are structurally situated in conditions where the surplus production is often transferred to dominant classes, and are subject to processes of semi-proletarianization and pauperization. Additionally, most marginal cultivators are also from the lower-ranked jatis and hence lack the social and cultural capital to emerge as successful or entrepreneurial agriculturists. …

The time value of housing: historical evidence from London residential leases

Abstract: Most housing transactions in London involve trading long leases of varying lengths. We exploit this feature to estimate the time value of housing --- the relationship between the value of a property and the length of time it will be owned for --- over the range 1-99 years. To do so, we compile a unique historical dataset from 1987 to 1992 to abstract from current institutional features of the UK system, for instance rights to extend leases that could confound our results. By applying hedonic techniques to these data we provide new evidence on how the market values leasehold properties. We find that the time value of housing over the range 1-99 is similar to an exponential shape, a finding that suggests sophisticated pricing behaviour in the London residential market. Digging deeper, however, we show that leasehold prices depart from this predictable pattern in a way that is consistent with a declining discount rate schedule.

Impact of non-farm work and land tenancy contracts on soil conservation measures

Abstract: This paper examines the impacts of non-farm work and land tenancy arrangements on the intensity of investment in soil-improving measures and farm productivity. A multivariate tobit model that accounts for potential endogeneity between the intensity of investment and the non-farm work and tenancy arrangement variables is estimated for 341 rural households in Punjab province of Pakistan. Instrumental variable approach is also used to analyze the impact of tenancy arrangement and non-farm work on farm productivity. The empirical results show that participation in non-farm work and tenure security tend to increase the intensity of investment in long-term soil-improving measures, but decrease chemical fertilizer use intensity. We also find that increases in non-farm work and tenure security exert significant and positive effects on agricultural productivity. Investment in soil conservation measures is also found to significantly increase agricultural productivity.

Taming China's Wilderness: Immigration, Settlement and the Shaping of the Heilongjiang Frontier, 1900-1931

Abstract: Contents: Introduction Immigrants, settlers and new communities Land, tenancy and economic transformation Ethnic transition to agricultural life Insecurity, banditry and social order Russian influence and Chinese response Epilogue Glossary Bibliography Index

Life time contracts : social long-term contracts in labour, tenancy and consumer credit law

Abstract: Preface Principles of Life time contracts (en/fr/de/it/es) EuSoCo declaration (en/de/fr/it/es) Introduction: The New Dimension of Life Time in the Law of Contracts and Obligations Part I: Life Time in Contract Law The Evolution of the European Contract Law: A Brand New Code, a Handy Toolbox or a Jack-in-the-box? Etica del contratto e contratti "di durata" per l'esistenza della persona" Lebenszeitvertrage und Teilhabe - Der zivilrechtliche Anschlussverlust als Verstoss gegen die Verfassung Lebenszeitvertrage - Natur und Ethik Le social" et la defaisance - Introduction au problem de la critique en droit europeen des contrats Life Time et contrat - Ronald Coase (1910 - 2013) et le detournement de l'interdisciplinarite du droit Part II: Labour Contracts The Historical Contribution of Employment Law to General Civil Law: a Lost Dimension? The end of mandatory rules in the employment contract law: on ready-made suits, goods made to measure and fashion trends Schutz und kollektive Privatautonomie - das Arbeitsverhaltnis in seiner Besonderheit Self-Employment and Economic Dependency in the light of the Social Contract Law Tarifautonomie und Vertragsgerechtigkeit: Der Beitrag des kollektiven Arbeitsrechts zur Vertragstheorie Part III: Consumer Credit Contracts Darlehensvertrag als Kapitalmiete (locatio conductio specialis) Change of circumstances in consumer credit contracts - the United Kingdom experience and a call for the maintenance of sector specific rules The EU Consumer Credit Directive 2008 in the light of the EuSoCo Principles Access to long-term banking services in the Nordic States A contractual approach to overindebtedness: rebus sic stantibus instead of bankruptcy Responsible bankruptcy Part IV: Residential Tenancy Contracts Das Recht auf Wohnraum und der Wohnraummietvertrag Towards a Common Core of Residential Tenancy Law in Europe? The impact of the European Court of Human Rights on Tenancy Law Exploring interfaces between social long-term contracts and European law through tenancy law Das koreanische Wohnungsmietschutzgesetz und die Notwendigkeit der Kontrolle des Mietwuchers

Customary Land at Crossroads: Contest for the Control of Customary Land in Zambia

Abstract: Customary land across Africa has come under increasing pressure over the past decade and a half from different angles. Among the factors which account for this growing pressure are population growth, sustained economic growth recorded in most countries over the past 15 years, and urbanisation. For instance in Zambia, the growing demand for land has manifested in the rapid increase of customary land being converted into leasehold tenure by well-resourced Zambians as well as foreign investors. But the practice of converting customary land into leasehold tenure is raising serious questions and concerns about the future of customary land. For some analysts, this is an auspicious moment marking the inevitable transition from communal to individualised land ownership. For example, the Zambian government has been promoting the conversion of customary land into leasehold tenure, arguing that this is the only way to ‘open up’ rural areas to investments, which is expected to bring development to these areas. However, some analysts argue that conversion of customary land into leasehold tenure undermines traditional authorities and the cultures of the Zambian people, as well as the fight against poverty in rural areas. This paper illustrates that while the privatisation of customary land may appear as a genuine attempt by the state to stimulate rural development, this practice is creating a contest for the control of customary land between traditional authorities (who have always been the custodians of customary land) and the state that seeks to extend its control over land resources in Zambia.

Impact of non-farm work and land tenancy contracts on soil conservation measures

Abstract: This paper examines the impacts of non-farm work and land tenancy arrangements on the intensity of investment in soil-improving measures and farm productivity. A multivariate tobit model that accounts for potential endogeneity between the intensity of investment and the non-farm work and tenancy arrangement variables is estimated for 341 rural households in Punjab province of Pakistan. Instrumental variable approach is also used to analyze the impact of tenancy arrangement and non-farm work on farm productivity. The empirical results show that participation in non-farm work and tenure security tend to increase the intensity of investment in long-term soil-improving measures, but decrease chemical fertilizer use intensity. We also find that increases in non-farm work and tenure security exert significant and positive effects on agricultural productivity. Investment in soil conservation measures is also found to significantly increase agricultural productivity.