Residential Tenancies and the Urban Land Law: The Ghanaian Experience.

Abstract

This thesis examines the functioning (or rather, in most cases, the non-functioning) of residential tenancy law in urban Ghana. Arising out of a deeply-held conviction that analysis and investigation of law should be rooted in its societal context, the first chapter examines the process of urbanization in Ghana and the housing situation in the urban areas. The interesting juristic issue of the applicablity of customary law to residential tenancies is also examined. The second chapter examines the nature of the residential tenancy in modern urban conditions. This is then compared and contrasted with other seemingly similar institutional arrangements. The substantive and procedural law affecting the creation of the residential tenancy relationship and the informality which characterizes the creation of the relationship is examined in chapter three. Examination of the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants starts from chapter four. The maintenance and repairing obligations of the parties are considered in chapter five. The obligation to pay rent is considered in chapter six - its historical antecedents and the resulting consequences being analysed. Chapters seven and eight deal with the important legal (but also political and socio-economic) issues raised by rent control and security of tenure. The thesis ends where it started from with a consideration of the concrete socio-economic and political realities of Ghanaian society and the resulting divergence between law and practice.