LAU33032 The Housing Crisis and the Law

Module Learning Outcomes with embedded Graduate Attributes  

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:  

• Understand the interaction between the law and the housing crisis. 
• Understand how the housing crisis manifests across a range of jurisdictions, housing type and individual experience. 
• Communicate effectively about the housing crisis and law via in-class discussion and written assessments. 
• Critically analyse law’s role in creating and addressing the housing crisis. 
• Evaluate different legal and policy responses to the housing crisis.

Module Content

Recent years have made clear that the housing crisis is not limited to one jurisdiction.  Yet the manifestations of the housing crisis are surprisingly similar across multiple countries and jurisdictions: rents and house prices are increasing beyond what is affordable for many, homelessness is on the increase, and even where people do have housing that housing fails to meet the requirements of adequate housing either due to the cost, structural defects, or lack of suitability more broadly. This module examines the law’s role in creating the housing crisis as well as the law’s role in addressing the crisis. The approach in this module is deliberately transnational, comparative and socio-legal and its scope is broad rather than deep.  The goal is to allow students to compare solutions both historic and contemporary across jurisdictions to assess what has and has not worked. A unifying theme across the topics explored in this module is the idea of a right to housing and how well (if at all) that right is protected.   

This module will examine homelessness, tenant rights, structural defects in housing, the regulation of multi-unit housing, how owner-occupation is structured, and the legal regulation of housing supply and use as exemplified by the regulation of short-term lets. The module will draw on material from legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and social policy scholars among others. The module will also draw on material from a range of jurisdictions including, Ireland, the UK, Canada, Australia, the US, South Africa, and the European Court of Human Rights. The module will also encourage students to reflect and draw on their own experiences of the housing crisis. 

Recommended Reading List

There a number of monographs and resources on the housing crisis.  By way of indicative list see e.g.:  

• Cathy Sherry, Strata Title Property Rights: Private governance of multi-owned properties (Routledge 2017).  
• Jessie Hohmann, The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities (Hart 2013).  
• David Cowan, Housing Law & Policy (CUP 2011).  
• Lorna Fox O’Mahony, Conceptualising Home: Theories, Laws and Policies (Hart 2007).  
• Michelle Norris, Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).  
• G Muller and S Viljoen, Property in Housing (Juta 2021).  
• Rory Hearne, Housing Shock: The Irish Housing Crisis and How to Solve It (Policy Press 2020)   
• Christoph U Schmid, Ways out of the European Housing Crisis: Tenure Innovation and Diversification in Comparative Perspective (Edward Elgar 2022).   
• Eddie Lewis, Social Housing Policy in Ireland: New Directions (IPA 2019).  
• Lorcan Sirr (ed), Housing in Ireland: Beyond the Markets (IPA 2021). 

Teaching and Learning Methods (including details of supervision)

Teaching and Learning will consist of weekly lecturers deliver to the students by the lecturer. Participation in class will be encouraged (but not assessed) by the lecturer covering key themes of each weekly topic.