The Right Not to Own
When people own their homes, they are released from subordination to landlords and can, moreover, enjoy the financial asset those homes represent. By contrast, renting can only ever provide a weaker property right, with restricted rights of use and possession, and rights of alienability limited to h...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Ethical perspectives
Year: 2022, Volume: 29, Issue: 2, Pages: 231-261 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Living space
/ Possessions
/ Right of possession
/ Rent
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| IxTheo Classification: | NCE Business ethics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | When people own their homes, they are released from subordination to landlords and can, moreover, enjoy the financial asset those homes represent. By contrast, renting can only ever provide a weaker property right, with restricted rights of use and possession, and rights of alienability limited to handing tenancies back to landlords. However, I want to argue for the advantages of certain forms of renting, precisely because of the limited rights of alienability renting entails: people can rationally prefer secure tenancies because they decrease their control over an asset, which eliminates the need for developing those competencies associated with home/asset ownership. Moreover, in instances when the burdens of homeownership interfere with the functions a home should perform for a person, then making homeownership a condition of housing security is a violation of housing rights. As a consequence, people’s right to secure housing should be understood both in terms of freedom from landlords exercising extensive rights of alienability and decoupled from full-liberal ownership. Tenancies unlimited by periods of tenure and which are enjoyed free of landlord’s rights of alienability thus put into action a right not to own one’s home. |
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| ISSN: | 1783-1431 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical perspectives
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2143/EP.29.2.3290920 |