Sarah Blandy, Ann Dupuis and Jennifer Dixon (eds): Multi-owned housing: law, power and practice

Abstract

Multi-Owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice explores the issues of private governance and management with respect to multi-owned housing. The foundations of the book were laid in 2005 with a conference paper in which the editors analysed multi-owned developments in England and New Zealand. The aim of this book is to provide a thorough conceptual basis on which the governance and management of housing with multiple owners can be examined across different jurisdictions in various countries. The choice of countries was partly based on practical considerations. The editors opted for countries with a common law regime and English language tradition. These rather arbitrary criteria may explain a certain imbalance as regards the book’s contents: five of the twelve country chapters deal with New Zealand and Australia. The other seven refer to England & Wales, Scotland, the United States, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. Besides its international perspective, interdisciplinarity is a key aspect of this book. As the backgrounds of the contributors suggest, the subject is relevant to scholars from a range of scientific disciplines. The introductory chapter presents a short and pragmatic conceptual framework for studying multi-owned housing. Its key concepts are rights and obligations and its focus is on the way these are allocated to the stakeholders during the life span of a complex. This conceptual framework is not applied consistently throughout the book, however, which makes it difficult to draw comparisons between the countries studied. Nonetheless, the book is informative and the case studies provide good insight in the issues the various countries encounter with regard to multi-owned housing. The book kicks off with England & Wales (Blandy). Following the conceptual framework, Blandy explores a wide range of statutory rules that apply to multi-owned residential projects and their owners’ experiences. Irrespective of the legal framework, individual owners find themselves in a far weaker position than the developers involved. Although this power imbalance has been reduced slightly by legislative reforms, further improvements seem necessary. Besides statutory changes, Blandy advocates initiatives that