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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 (rehabilitación 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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the societal impacts and consequences of the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

One month after the tsunami, a group of social science researchers from the Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, and the Emergency Administration and Planning Program, University of North Texas, participated in an Earthquake Engineering Research Institute reconnaissance team, which traveled to some of the most affected areas in India and Sri Lanka. Data were obtained through informal interviews, participant observation, and systematic document gathering.

This research yielded important data and information on disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. A number of issues are identified that emerged from the field observations, including: tsunami education and awareness; the devastation and the loss; economic impact; mental health issues; irregularities and inequities in community based response and recovery efforts and in the distribution of disaster relief aid; gender and inequality; and relocation and housing issues.

The paper highlights the role and importance of generating integrated early warning systems and strategies aimed at fostering sustainable recovery and building disaster resilient communities.

An extensive amount of perishable data were collected thus providing a better understanding of the societal impacts of disasters on impoverished communities. A number of emerging issues are identified that should be of primary concern in efforts to protect populations residing in coastal regions throughout the world from similar catastrophes.

This paper aims to determine household perceptions of disaster recovery plan development and implementation, and to identify groups that may be less aware of the recovery planning process to provide recommendations to officials for improving participation in planning and resident support of implementation priorities.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 194 residents of a US Atlantic coast county impacted by Hurricane Irene. Respondents were selected via a two-stage cluster sampling method automated through the use of a Geographic Information Systems toolkit.

Although few households reported participation in the county’s recovery planning process, a majority felt that the plan would be better if it incorporated input from a wide range of stakeholders. The number one reason residents did not participate was the lack of knowledge that they could. Some vulnerable populations were less aware of the recovery plan, including the elderly and those living in poverty, while others were more aware, including those with children and those without access to a working vehicle. Respondents prioritized recovery activities around infrastructure and public safety, yet ranked activities related to public information and housing as less important.

This paper highlights potential successes of emergency management outreach and identifies groups that are not being reached during recovery planning. The paper provides insight on resident priorities for recovery after disaster.

There has been little research on the implementation of recovery plans and few studies that have examined the behaviors and opinions of households with regard to recovery plan development and implementation.

Ukraine's immigration policy is in a state of formation, and its legal framework is being constantly improved. The level of immigration in Ukraine remains low. Foreigners often view Ukraine not as a desirable place of residence, but as a transit territory, a convenient corridor or a jumping-off place for realization on the path to a dream destination – living in Europe. The evaluation of the features of immigrants' integration in Ukraine is conducted.

The authors investigate the peculiarities of the immigration process in Ukraine and identify common problems associated with the integration of migrants into Ukrainian society. The lack of statistical data causes some obstacles to immigrant integration research in Ukraine.

The aim of this chapter is to present the integration policy and practices provided at a national macro level. The most significant challenges of migrants' integration into the Ukrainian society require solving via social, cultural, economic and legal structures. Moreover, Ukraine's immigration policy should be improved and integrated into EU standards.

A review of the existing literature on disasters, impact, local vulnerability, and adaptation indicates to the fact that recent increasing frequency of natural disasters (e.g., floods, storms, and drought) have increasingly caused impacts on a diverse set of physical and biological systems, especially for those living in the developing countries where their livelihood strategies rely on natural resources (McCarthy, Canziani, Leary, Dokken, & White, 2001; Selvaraju, Subbiah, Baas, & Juergens, 2006; Kumar, 2007; Cruz et al., 2007).

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether enforceability mediates the relationship between property rights and investment in housing, using data from land formalization project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The study was cross-sectional in design; data were collected from a sample of 210 households that benefited from the recent Addis Ababa city land and buildings formalization project. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the goodness-of-fit of the latent structures underlying the constructs. Mediation was tested using the Baron and Kenny steps, combined with bootstrapping technique. Robustness of results was checked.

The results indicate statistically significant mediation effect of contract enforcement. However, the mediation is partial, there is still a substantial direct effect of security of property rights on investment.

Any initiative to land formalization projects needs to consider contract enforcement environment, as presence and size of property rights effects largely depend on whether those rights are properly enforced.

This is the first study that conceptualizes the mediating effect of contract enforcement on the relationship between property rights and investment from an African country perspective.

This is the first article to apply a machine learning approach to the analysis of time on market on real estate markets.

The random survival forest approach is introduced to the real estate market. The most important predictors of time on market are revealed and it is analyzed how the survival probability of residential rental apartments responds to these major characteristics.

Results show that price, living area, construction year, year of listing and the distances to the next hairdresser, bakery and city center have the greatest impact on the marketing time of residential apartments. The time on market for an apartment in Munich is lowest at a price of 750 € per month, an area of 60 m2, built in 1985 and is in a range of 200–400 meters from the important amenities.

The findings might be interesting for private and institutional investors to derive real estate investment decisions and implications for portfolio management strategies and ultimately to minimize cash-flow failure.

Although machine learning algorithms have been applied frequently on the real estate market for the analysis of prices, its application for examining time on market is completely novel. This is the first paper to apply a machine learning approach to survival analysis on the real estate market.

Floods have been identified as the most frequent and threatening disaster in Sri Lanka amidst an increasing trend of natural and man-made disasters in the world. Subject experts state that disaster risk management should be based on the results of risk assessments, but flood risk management in Sri Lanka is seemingly not based on community-level flood risk assessments. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to introduce a community-level flood risk assessment method to the local context of Sri Lanka.

The sample (n = 425) for the study was selected using the stratified random sampling method, and the Deduru Oya basin was selected as the study area. The risk assessment model introduced by Bollin et al. (2003) was used for the current study, but with some modifications. Accordingly, 16 variables were selected for the risk assessment. Descriptive data analysis methods were used in the study.

Community-level flood risk assessment method was introduced. Variable index, flood risk index and flood risk map were developed for the study area. The Grama Niladari Divisions (GNDs) were grouped into five categories from very high risk to very low risk. The GNDs named Wirakumandaluwa, Thimbilla, Deduru Oya, Bangadeniya and Elivitiya were ranked as the most flood-risk GNDs, respectively.

This paper produces a flood risk assessment method for the local context. Flood risk in the study area was assessed based on people’s perceptions. Accordingly, the flood risk index and flood risk map for the study area were developed based on the empirical data. GNDs were ranked based on the flood risk index.

Rapidly increasing school enrolments present a major problem in forward planning in many parts of the world. One aspect of this problem is the provision of buildings and classrooms. This paper describes the procedures adopted for the siting, planning and erection of school buildings by the Auckland Education Board, a local education authority responsible for 100,000 primary children. The board employs a full‐time planning and research officer whose chief duty is predicting enrolment trends from national census returns, figures on population mobility, immigration and birthrate and other sources. School sites are selected and purchased to provide for long‐term needs. Buildings are erected under a national “white‐lines” policy, adapted from English practice. This policy, which is designed to give local authorities scope for initiative and imagination in planning, lays down minimum standards for buildings and establishes maximum costs for schools of various sizes. There is some danger in standardization of this type, but regular discussions on design are held with teachers and other professional people associated with schools.

The purpose of this paper is to set out to analyze the supervisor psychological contract as a new psychological contract focus. Furthermore, the relationship between this psychological contract and the organizational psychological contract is compared in the prediction of job satisfaction and organizational affective commitment among a sample of traditional (in-house) and temporary agency workers.

The hypotheses were tested with multiple group analyses in a sample of 444 Portuguese call center workers: 215 were in-house and 229 were temporary agency workers.

Results confirmed that workers, regardless of their status, distinguished these two foci of psychological contract. However, for temporary workers, the supervisor psychological contract partially mediated the relationship between the organizational psychological contract and attitudes; while for in-house workers the organizational psychological contract was relevant to explain job satisfaction and the two foci of the psychological contract related independently to workers’ affective commitment toward the organization.

The study is limited due to the nature of the sample (call center sector where temporary agency and in-house workers received similar opportunities and treatment) and the lack of a longitudinal design.

An important implication of this research is that employers should assume the relevance of the supervisor for temporary agency workers. The social exchange between them and the host organization occurs in part through his/her actions.

Although supervisor psychological contract has been acknowledged, as far as the authors know there are no empirical studies that support its existence or analyzes its relevance in worker-organization relationships.