scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
24 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the private rental sector policy settings and institutions relevant to Australia in 10 countries in Australasia, Europe and North America, with a detailed review of the sectors in Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom and United States.
Abstract: This study investigated the private rental sector policy settings and institutions relevant to Australia in 10 countries in Australasia, Europe and North America, with a detailed review of the sectors in Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and United States. The research investigated the international experience of housing and impact of broader economic systems, financial settings, landlord and tenancy structures and regulation in the reference countries.

61 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a qualitative study was conducted to investigate the nature of the implementation gap and the factors that explain it in the case of Ghana where the existing law on land registration provides for the registration of diverse customary land rights, but ambiguity and contradictions among laws made at different times as well as practices of implementation of the law often result in the registration process of only leasehold titles while neglecting other customary rights.

33 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a simple portfolio model has been developed which incorporates three different specifications of tenurial status that define land tenure security, and empirical evidences support Besley's'security effect' hypothesis that secured land tenure enhances adoption of improved technology.

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the role that land lease can play for preserving peri-urban agriculture is explored, where the spatial structure of leasing brings opportunities as well as constraints to the change and continuation of farming in this periurban area.

23 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This systematic review is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to focus solely on tenancy sustainment as a primary outcome and highlights that a standardized approach to measuring housing stability and more high-quality intervention studies are essential.
Abstract: Background. Tenancy sustainment—maintenance of a tenancy to avoid a premature end of tenure—is fundamental to prevention of homelessness. Understanding what enables a successful tenancy is essentia...

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the urban spatial structure of growing megacities on a polycentric or edgeless development pathway under public leasehold systems using transaction data on commercial land use rights within the Shanghai metropolitan area for 2004-2016.

18 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening, and highlights the value of understanding farmer-driven innovations and the role of indigenous institutions and cultural values in sustaining and enhancing household food security.
Abstract: This paper examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening. Despite rapid population growth and planting nearly all of their land to oil palm, virtually all families continue to grow sufficient food for their families. The paper outlines the diverse range of adaptive strategies that households have employed to maintain food security, involving both intensification and innovation in farming systems. While gains from intensification have been significant and built resilience, they have been incremental, whereas innovation has been transformative and led to large gains in resilience. The adoption of more flexible land access arrangements on state leasehold land that ‘revive’ and adapt indigenous systems of land sharing and exchange that operated through kinship networks on customary land are innovative; they have increased the supply of land for food gardening thereby reducing risk for individual households and the broader smallholder community. The paper highlights the value of understanding farmer-driven innovations and the role of indigenous institutions and cultural values in sustaining and enhancing household food security.

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare theoretical assumptions about the relationships between landowners, leaseholders and soil quality with empirical evidence based on correlations between arable land rent prices, rent proportions and yield potential.
Abstract: Soils are under increasing utilization pressure, and soil governance is an important element to maintain soil functions and prevent the degradation of soil quality. However, scientific studies about soil governance are rare. In this paper, we focus on the governance mechanism of land rent. Here, a major theoretical assumption is that landowners have higher incentives to maintain soil quality than leaseholders. By using data for German arable land at the county level, we contrast theoretical assumptions about the relationships between landowners, leaseholders and soil quality with empirical evidence based on correlations between arable land rent prices, rent proportions and yield potential. The main finding is that the empirical data contradict the theoretical assumptions to a large degree, i.e., no clear relationship could be discerned between the three parameters of arable land soil quality, rent price and rent proportion. We discuss possible explanations for the revealed contradictions based on the state of research and highlight the need for future research to better understand the potential of arable land tenancy as a governance mechanism for sustainable soil management.

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors assesses the impact of redistributive land reforms on structural change and income per capita, and shows that reforms were responsible for at least half of the actual reallocation of labor out of agriculture in each of these countries in the aftermath of the reforms.
Abstract: Redistributive land reforms implemented in post‐WWII Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have often been considered a substantial stimulus for these countries’ subsequent economic growth. Before the reforms, there were a small number of large landlords and many small tenant cultivators, but after the reforms, tenancy effectively disappeared. This article assesses the impact of reforms on structural change and income per capita, and shows that reforms were responsible for at least half of the actual reallocation of labor out of agriculture in each of these countries in the aftermath of the reforms. By contrast, their impact on income per capita was small.

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The emergence of Jamshedpur, site of India's first steel plant and privately governed company town, as part of an unprecedented large-scale extraction of mineral resources at the turn of the twentieth century for the purpose of industrial development is examined in this article.
Abstract: This article examines the emergence of Jamshedpur, site of India's first steel plant and privately governed company town, as part of an unprecedented large-scale extraction of mineral resources at the turn of the twentieth century for the purpose of industrial development. It traces the protracted acquisition of land and dispossession of mainly adivasi (tribal) cultivators by the Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) from ca. 1900 to 1930. The company pursued a distinct strategy of obtaining short-term leases from princely states and zamindars (landowners), while simultaneously appealing to the legal apparatus of the colonial state to secure absolute tenurial rights. The uneven application of laws such as the Land Acquisition Act (1894) and the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (1908) allowed TISCO to become a quasi-sovereign power in eastern India, simultaneously acting as employer, landlord, and municipal government. Jamshedpur's continually anomalous legal status underlies the persistence of multiple, fragmented, and competing sovereignties in India, even as an ostensibly unified national economic state space emerged by the time of independence in 1947. More broadly, it suggests that the contours of the relationship between states and corporations, particularly in a postcolonial context, are determined both by preexisting political geographies and contingent legal struggles.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the determinants of the probability and proportion of owned land left fallow by farmers in India using nationally representative survey data and found that having more land increased the likelihood of land being left fallowed.
Abstract: This paper investigates the determinants of the probability and proportion of owned land left fallow by farmers in India using nationally representative survey data. Using a zero-inflated beta regression, we find that having more land increased the likelihood of land being left fallow. Those with tractors were less likely to leave land fallow and had a lesser proportion of land left fallow. Living in a village which practised tenancy (predominantly fixed-rent tenancy) reduced the proportion of land left fallow. The amount of subsidised food grains the household received from the public distribution system, distance from nearest town and nonfarm opportunities available to the household increased the proportion of land left fallow. In summary, our results emphasise the importance of urbanisation, mechanisation and tenancy reforms for fallowing decisions of farm households. It also underpins the non-separability of production decisions from consumption and labour decisions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present answers to the question of what motivates students who undertake transactions in the property market, leading to the generation of a set of the most important features determining the attractiveness of properties from the point of view of the analyzed population.
Abstract: Students as property tenants are an underestimated and understudied aspect of the market. To date, there has been a widely held opinion that student decisions in the property market and their scope are mostly limited to the area of academic centres. It is estimated that, in Poland, over a million students enter into tenancy agreements annually, most of which are in the private property market. Such wide demand is directed at selected, diverse locations and dwellings of particular characteristics, satisfying the preferences of young people at a specific moment of their lives (the so-called “emerging adults”). The present article aims to present answers to the question of what motivates students who undertake transactions in the property market. Information on the characteristics of the sought after properties was obtained by way of surveys, leading to the generation of a set of the most important features determining the attractiveness of properties from the point of view of the analyzed population. The phenomenon of the popularity of particular locations (urban estates) has also been examined in detail.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of the law on the behavior of market subjects in the agricultural land market is analyzed and the authors analyze the impact of law on market subjects' decision processes.
Abstract: Agricultural land market is usually defined as the purchase of agricultural land. i n the most of the European countries, the land rental transactions have received the dominant position in the land market. Therefore, the land rental transactions are included into the agricultural land market analysis. The decision processes of market subjects are often influenced by the law. on the one hand, there is the law regulating the value of agricultural land from the various points of view. on the other hand, there are some statutes stipulating the rental legal rules. The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of the law on the behaviour of market subjects in the agricultural land market.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used a unique data set of property laws in 119 jurisdictions in the world to test convergence/divergence theories in comparative property law and found that the style of property law will tend to converge when the doctrines in question are isolated, but diverge when they are interconnected.
Abstract: This article utilizes a unique data set of property laws in 119 jurisdictions in the world to test convergence/divergence theories in comparative property law. Our theory predicts that first, the structure of property law among all jurisdictions in the world will converge, or is similar since some time in the distant past, as they all face the same, positive transaction costs in delineating property rights. Second, our theory posits that the style of property law will tend to converge when the doctrines in question are isolated, but diverge when they are interconnected. Our data and descriptive analysis support the theory. Doctrines regarding possession, sales, condominium, tenancy in common, and limited property rights serve as prominent examples.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors characterize the dynamic that governed the informal tenancy process in different settlements of Buenos Aires over the last decade by analyzing the profiles of relevant actors (tenants, offering parties and mediators) and the forms adopted by tenancy on a daily basis.
Abstract: The widespread presence of informal settlements has historically characterized the growth and consolidation process of Latin American cities. Initially, these self-production methods placed priority on the satisfaction of basic needs; however, the progressive consolidation experienced by these spaces triggered the emergence of informal commodification models to secure access to land and housing, such as tenancy. This paper aims to characterize the dynamic that governed the informal tenancy process in different settlements of Buenos Aires over the last decade by analyzing the profiles of relevant actors (tenants, offering parties and mediators) and the forms adopted by tenancy on a daily basis (circuits, conditions and economic agreements.) The cases analyzed in this paper (Settlement 31 and 31 bis, 20, 3, 21-24 and Rodrigo Bueno, all built on public lands) reveal a growing heterogeneity among actors and agreements that consolidate, through practices, a private land appropriation process and the exacerbation of intra-territorial inequalities, thus posing a challenge to rights-based urban policies.

01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: Research Associates, Technical University of Munich, Department of Informatics, Software Engineering for Business Information Systems, Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching bei München, DE, joerg.landthaler@tum.in.de, elena.scepankova@ tum.tUM.de
Abstract: Research Associates, Technical University of Munich, Department of Informatics, Software Engineering for Business Information Systems, Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching bei München, DE, joerg.landthaler@tum.de, elena.scepankova@tum.de, ingo.glaser@tum.de; http://wwwmatthes.in.tum.de Rechtsanwalt, Produktmanager der Zielgruppe Rechtsanwälte, Haufe-Lexware GmbH & Co. KG, Fraunhoferstr. 5, 82152 Planegg/München, DE, hans.lecker@haufe-lexware.com; http://www.haufe-lexware.com Professor, Technical University of Munich, Department of Informatics, Software Engineering for Business Information Systems, Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching bei München, DE, matthes@in.tum.de; http://wwwmatthes.in.tum.de

Journal ArticleDOI
16 Jun 2018
TL;DR: The Theory of Share Tenancy by Steven Cheung, first published as a PhD thesis 50 years ago, was an important watershed study on the economics of contracts as discussed by the authors, which contained the first formal demonstration of the Coase Theorem, linked the concepts of property rights and transaction costs, laid early foundations for the future economics of contract, and can even lay claim to originating the idea of a risk/incentive tradeoff in contract design.
Abstract: The Theory of Share Tenancy by Steven Cheung, first published as a PhD thesis 50 years ago, was an important watershed study on the economics of contracts. It contained the first formal demonstration of the Coase Theorem, linked the concepts of property rights and transaction costs, laid early foundations for the future economics of contracts, and can even lay claim to originating the idea of a risk/incentive tradeoff in contract design. This essay examines Cheung's key contributions in Share Tenancy, and considers reasons for its somewhat limited legacy outside of China.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The impact of insecure property rights on the behaviour of owners of land before the Spanish Civil War was studied in this paper. But they did not find that uncertainty over property rights in the 1930s meant that owners tried to substitute tenants with wage labourers, especially in the case of the controversial rabassa morta contracts on vineyards.
Abstract: This article studies the impact of insecure property rights on the behaviour of owners of land before the Spanish Civil War. The theoretical literature on land reform argues that legal threats to the status quo determine agrarian organization, with owners selling land and moving to other asset classes or engaging in large‐scale substitution of sharecroppers and tenants with wage labourers. This study, which uses municipal data on tenant evictions in Catalonia in 1934–5, does not find that uncertainty over property rights in the 1930s meant that owners tried to substitute tenants with wage labourers, especially in the case of the controversial rabassa morta contracts on vineyards. Here it is argued that after 40 years of organizational adjustment to shocks related to phylloxera infestations, legal changes, urbanization, and changes in relative prices, by the 1930s the margin for adjustment was small.

Journal ArticleDOI
09 Jul 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the legal regime of renovations in lieu of rent and how this scheme works, and determine whether this new scheme, according to the current regulation, may represent a true residential alternative for vulnerable people or if legislative reform is needed to promote its use.
Abstract: In the context of difficulties in access to housing, the Spanish Act 4/2013 introduced a new article 17.5 into the Act on Urban Leases 1994 (LAU). This paper regulates the so-called renovations in lieu of rent (rehabilitacion por renta), that is to say, a tenancy contract in which the tenant does not pay the rent in money but by performing renovation works in the same rented dwelling. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the legal regime of renovations in lieu of rent and how this scheme works.,Renovations in lieu of rent, by its own nature, allow a tenant with building skills to access affordable housing. However, due to the new regulation of this tenancy contract, which is only included in Paragraph 5 of art. 17 LAU, some problems may arise from a legal perspective.,This paper approaches the compatibility of this scheme with the LAU, detects its problems and proposes legal improvements.,This paper explores the application of renovations in lieu of rent and determines whether this new scheme, according to the current regulation, may represent a true residential alternative for vulnerable people or if legislative reform is needed to promote its use.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that even the fixed-rent tenants can have an incentive problem, albeit of the opposite type, if an inter-temporal optimisation framework is adopted.
Abstract: Traditionally the tenancy-inefficiency debate is centred on the incentive problem of sharecroppers that induce them to under-supply inputs and effort in cultivation. The fixed-rent tenants are supposed to be free from this problem as the rents they pay are in the nature of fixed costs and hence do not enter marginal calculations. The present paper argues that even the fixed-rent tenants can have an incentive problem, albeit of the opposite type, if an inter-temporal optimisation framework is adopted. They may be inclined to use production-enhancing inputs like chemical fertilisers excessively so as to maximise returns from the land during their tenure, disregarding the implication of their action for long-term soil health. For empirical verification of the argument, the authors analyse survey data from Assam Plains, where land holders of all size class actively participate in the land lease market. While the sharecroppers have been expectedly found to use land less intensively than the owner operators, the fixed-rent tenants are seen using land much more intensively which can impair soil health in the longer run. Suitable reforms of the prevailing agrarian institutions have been called for to address the incentive problems of both sharecroppers and fixed-rent tenants.

Journal IssueDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative analysis on the tenant's right to terminate is presented, and the authors argue that tenants in Estonia have no real choice to opt for the flexibility needed without a trade-off in terms of stability.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors investigated the collusion of redevelopment agency and private developers that jointly turns the URA-led redevelopment into neighborhood gentrification. And by examining Kwun Tong Town Centre Project (KTTCP), findings indicate that soaring property value will crowd low-income groups and working classes out from their original neighborhoods; and then those gentrified residential estates will be occupied by rich class.
Abstract: Playing as a global city, to maintain the economic dynamics and urban vitality, Hong Kong government would like to take urban regeneration in urban core as a kind of urban growth strategy. The government monopolizes land supply for urban development through the leasehold system, while the redevelopment agency is authorized to take land acquisition for urban redevelopment. The transformation of agency from Land Development Corporation (LDC) to Urban Renewal Authority (URA) reflected the formation of a coalition composed of quasi-public redevelopment agency and private developer, which facilitates land and property resumption in urban redevelopment. The URA-led projects often tend to redevelop obsolete communities into up-market neighborhoods, which possibly enables redevelopment agency and developers to gain more economic benefits from real estate appreciation. Nevertheless, evidences from some large redevelopment projects conducted by URA in Hong Kong such as Lee Tung Street, Langham Palace and Kennedy Town have presented that urban redevelopment is closely associated with gentrification triggered by displacement of original neighborhood residents. Hence gentrification in Hong Kong has raised more and more concerns about booming housing price as well as fragmentation of social networks. Through urban regime combined with growth machine approach, this paper will explain the collusion of redevelopment agency and private developers that jointly turns the URA-led redevelopment into neighborhood gentrification. And by examining Kwun Tong Town Centre Project (KTTCP), findings indicate that soaring property value will crowd low-income groups and working classes out from their original neighborhoods; and then those gentrified residential estates will be occupied by rich class. Moreover, increasing rent and operation costs will inevitably eliminate those family-operated small businesses; and then they will be superseded by high-end retailing and services. In this way, urban morphology will be reshaped perpetually through more and more gentrified neighborhoods.

Book ChapterDOI
12 Jun 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the urban planning in the concrete economic, social, and political context of capitalism and deal with questions like: is urban planning exclusively a domain of activity of urban planners?
Abstract: This chapter describes the urban planning in the concrete economic, social, and political context of capitalism. It deals with questions like: is urban planning exclusively a domain of activity of urban planners? Urban landowners in the nineteenth century, given the institution of private property in land, and given the leasehold system would seek to develop their land in 'building estates'. They would lease the land to a contractor/capitalist who would, in turn, build working-class houses and rent them. The internal logic of early capitalist society carried in it the necessary and sufficient conditions for a qualitative transformation of laissez-faire into monopoly/welfare state capitalism. The contradictions between urban planning theory and practice diminish considerably during periods of territorial instability and social turmoil. The problems, predicaments, and contradictions in urban planning, not unlike those in capitalism itself, are pregnant with their own resolutions. There are two interrelated dimensions to the assertion: an objective and a subjective dimension.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results suggest that land restoration projects that integrate community development into project planning and implementation will achieve greater success, including aligning restoration objectives with local motives and perceived benefits, and ensuring incentives are in place to stimulate long-term investments.

Journal ArticleDOI
14 Aug 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that it is possible for tenants and landlords to continue to bargain outside the shadow of the law to secure mutually beneficial tenancy agreements, influenced by New Institutional Economics.
Abstract: A feature of the Ghana private rental accommodation market is that landlords usually demand advance rent of, in some instances, up to 5 years before signing a tenancy agreement. This is in violation of the 1963 Rent Act and recent initiatives are in the direction of curing this problem in the interest of protecting prospective tenants. However while advance rent is a financial burden this is offset by transaction costs in the housing market. Hence, in this paper and influenced by New Institutional Economics, I argue that it is possible for tenants and landlords to continue to bargain outside the shadow of the law to secure mutually beneficial tenancy agreements.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine private renting in Hungary, with the aim of understanding what factors contribute to the pervasive informality and "invisibility" of private renting, and find that a significant share of the sector remains hidden.
Abstract: The share of private rented housing in Hungary has been growing steadily for over a decade. At the same time, reliable surveys about the sector are almost inexistent. Private rental market actors conceal their tenancy or their rental income because of the financial incentives in place, which strongly favour owner-occupation, while all but ignoring rental tenures, but also because of deficiencies of the legal environment of private renting. As a consequence, surveyors and census officials have no means of obtaining reliable data—even when they themselves are aware that a significant share of the sector remains hidden. The chapter examines private renting in Hungary, with the aim of understanding what factors contribute to the pervasive informality and ‘invisibility’ of private renting.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the various mechanisms that the monasteries employed in each period to seek to control their lands and rents and show that they actually managed to collect almost the entire amount of their rents at the time of disentailment and exclaustration of church lands, which can be said of other religious communities throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
Abstract: From the twelfth century on significant numbers of Benedictine and Bernardian monasteries in the region of Galicia owned great dominions that were ceded under foral arrangements to peasants. These land colonizers implemented strategies of undermining direct dominion thanks to the fragmentation, dispersion and extension of the land, along with the fact that the right to cultivate land could pass to relatives or neighbours. Moreover, the intense changes affecting the agricultural land structure in the Modern Age forced the religious orders to continually seek to control these farm lands and to clarify the obligations of the tenants. Ultimately it was not the amount of land or the surface measurements that mattered for estimating the properties, but rather the land production or rents. Mainly using the abundant documentation in the splendid Cistercian archives, this paper examines the various mechanisms that the monasteries employed in each period to seek to control their lands and rents. First were the attempts to define the delimitation of the lands (apeos). Next came efforts to transform foral land tenancy into leased land arrangements. Finally, in the last part of the Ancien Regime, prorating was used. Given the rather inefficient outcome of the delimitation of land and the failed attempts to end the foral arrangements, a cursory reading would suggest that the Galician monasteries were not very successful in their efforts. Yet their accounting indicates that they actually managed to collect almost the entire amount of their rents at the time of the disentailment and exclaustration of church lands, which is more than can be said of other religious communities throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Janakari et al. as mentioned in this paper highlighted the significance of silvicultural aspects of leasehold forestry for overall socio-economic benefits to the poor and vulnerable forest users, and found that silviculture practices, except plantations and weeding, were not adopted in leasehold forest but there was great potential for such practices to maximize the socioeconomic benefits.
Abstract: Government of Nepal has adopted different models like community forestry, leasehold forestry, collaborative forestry, buffer zone community forestry and public land agroforestry for management of forest resources. Poor focused leasehold forestry is only the approach adopted since early 1990 that has two major objectives: livelihood improvement and environmental conservation. Forest user groups of 5–15 households (HHs) are provided with part of national forests for a period of initial lease of 40 years. Leased forests are managed mainly with forestry crops, forage and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) to meet the dual objectives. Past studies and researches have indicated that leasehold forests are better than the hand over time however they are inadequate in dealing with silvicultural aspects in leasehold forestry (LF). This research paper has highlighted the significance of silvicultural aspects of leasehold forestry for overall socio-economic benefits to the poor and vulnerable forest users. Review of the existing policy and legal documents, studies and progress reports of the leasehold forestry projects implemented during the last two decades, consultation with leasehold forest user groups from five districts (Tehrathum, Makawanpur, Tanahun, Pyuthan and Doti) formed the main source of data for this article. Further, author’s own experiences in the sector were taken as supporting reliable information for the study. The study found that silvicultural practices, except plantations and weeding, were not adopted in leasehold forest but there was great potential for such practices to maximize the socio-economic benefits. Proper use of silvicultural practices might have increased contribution to currently realized benefits like (i) increased income of members i.e. poorest families (having less than 3 months secured foods) were reduced over years, (ii) group members had increased access to different networks and cooperatives, (iii) participation of women, poor and indigenous people increased in the decision-making process, and (iv) forest coverage was increased with respect to the hand over time. Some issues on silviculture aspects included proper guidelines for silvicultural methods, capacity of staff and leasehold forest user group members, smaller sizes of leasehold forests, and promotion of appropriate species. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for Nepal Special Issue No. 4, 2018, Page: 113-119

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that long fixed term residential tenancy agreements are not a promising way of addressing housing insecurity and propose a better approach for law reform to remove "without grounds" terminations by landlords and provide only for "just grounds".
Abstract: The greater use of long fixed term residential tenancy agreements is often put forward as a means for improving the housing security of tenants. On the contrary, this article argues that long fixed terms are not a promising way of addressing housing insecurity. Considering the structure of the Australian rental housing sector, tenants' subjective experiences of security and mobility, and international experience, long fixed terms as currently conceived of by the laws of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria are not useful for either landlord or tenants. Furthermore, recent law reform proposals to facilitate their greater use do not make them much more useful and may be to the disadvantage of vulnerable tenants. The better approach is for law reform to remove "without grounds" terminations by landlords and provide only for "just grounds". Some variations on this approach are considered.