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The Recast Energy Efficiency Directive 2023 has defined the concept of “split incentive,” also known as “tenant-owner dilemma.” This dilemma refers to the situation where neither landlords nor tenants have incentives to invest in energy efficiency upgrades. Although the Energy Efficiency Directive calls Member States to overcome legal barriers to remove split incentives and to encourage retrofits, the list of possible measures is too vague. This paper aims to discuss tenancy law measures designed to increase the energy efficiency of residential housing and to detect which Member States have already addressed this phenomenon.

This paper analyses, from a civil legal perspective, the possible private law barriers arising from the tenant-owner dilemma when performing energy efficiency works in selected countries and proposes legal reforms in tenancy law and related policies to overcome them. To do so, this paper follows a legal-dogmatic and comparative law methodology.

This paper concludes that some tenancy law provisions, such as the possibility to increase the rent after energy efficiency renovations and long-term leases, may challenge the tenant-owner dilemma in private rented markets, thus promoting renovations and retrofitting for energy efficiency purposes. It also proposes other policies intended to increase parties’ willingness to undertake works.

More research on the economic and legal efficiency to regulate some of the civil law measures to challenge the tenant-owner dilemma should be necessary.

The civil law measures included in this paper may help national policymakers meet the energy efficiency targets, according to what is established in the Recast Energy Efficiency Directive 2023.

Based on the economic theory of the tenant-owner dilemma, this paper investigates the elements of tenancy law that may contribute to less energy-efficient homes, proposing policies for those countries interested in addressing the energy-efficiency challenge from a private law point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the regulatory barriers to achieving sustainable buildings in Kosovo. The present paper focuses on regulatory barriers viewed from the perspective of construction industry experts in achieving sustainable buildings.

The present study uses a qualitative research method and semi-structured interviews as a research instrument. The present study interviews around 20 experts in construction and property management, property development, spatial planning and energy management.

The study finds that Kosovo building laws and regulations provide for the materials assessment criteria, but the materials assessment criteria are only for mechanic strength. The study further finds that the sustainability concept is not included and incorporated in Kosovo's urban planning laws and regulations. The study also finds that despite specific clauses mentioning energy performance certificates in the Law on Energy Performance of Buildings in Kosovo, energy performance certificates appears to be not enforced and the nature of the barrier is more organizational rather than regulatory. Finally, the study finds that Kosovo laws are silent as far as green labeling of building materials is concerned.

The implication of the present finding is that policymakers in Kosovo not only should include clear sustainable materials assessment criteria in the law, but also enforce those criteria through testing and inspection mechanisms included in the law and implemented in practice through funding and organizational support. Nonetheless, policymakers in Kosovo should contemplate amending the urban planning laws in Kosovo and include both the term of sustainability at the planning level and conformity guidelines for sustainable design that can be done at the administrative directive level. Further, the clauses in the law do not suffice if the clauses are not accompanied by specific systemic and organizational support in the issuance of energy performance certificates. Policymakers in Kosovo should be proactive in designing clauses that specify green labeling standards for materials; however, these labeling standards should not adversely affect the cost of construction and reduce the demand for real estate.

The study is the first qualitative study about the perception of construction professionals in Kosovo, regarding the regulatory barriers of sustainable buildings in Kosovo.

By using exploratory mixed methods, this study aims to present the investigation of the existing situation of private off-campus student accommodation at the University of Allahabad (UoA) in Prayagraj city.

This study explored the geographical variability of student’s private rental housing in Prayagraj city of India through 721 responses from an online semi-structured questionnaire, together with 12 interviews. Moran’s I and LISA were used to determine spatial clustering of rents paid by male and female students.

Results of this study reveal prevalence of unregulated with poor quality of off-campus housing in general and expensive rents in the proximity of UoA.

Obtaining less responses from the female students was one of the important limitations.

A win-win strategy might be formulated with a mix of innovative solutions inclusive of public private partnerships and social economy solutions woven with need-based rental housing, rekindled as the affordable rental housing complexes after COVID-19 pandemic.

This study is highly beneficial to improve liveability in the student housing segment.

This paper develops extensive understanding on the potential student housing segment in the Indian cities. Additionally, this paper demonstrates weak coordination between the central government policies, educational administrators and municipal officials.

This chapter deals with family/household relevance as a stakeholder institution in rural (farm) communities. The data collection approach is qualitative. Families in Japan and the Philippines’ rice-cultivating communities were the subjects of the study. Results revealed that households in the two sites were experiencing a unique ontological crisis vis-á-vis farming communities. The crisis pointed to the problem of farm families’ relegation as secondary stakeholders in the farming sector. Despite the struggle for survival in the farm sector, farm families were differently adaptive and enduring in dealing with the modern development – that is, selective technology adoption, farmland redefinition, struggle and resistance against farm policies, and community group accommodation, to name a few. This endurance contributes to farm family persistence as a relevant institution in Japan and the Philippines.

Although the Singapore model of ethnic integration through its public housing programme is well known, the formula for replicating its success elsewhere remains underexplored. This study aims to identify the criteria for successful transplantation, specifically by identifying the housing tenure types that are most amenable to the implementation of the Singapore model.

Through a comparative study of two common law jurisdictions – Singapore and England – this article highlights the differences in their housing landscapes and how such differences impact upon the adoption of ethnic integration policies through housing. The article also unpacks, through a cross-disciplinary lens, the concepts of public housing and housing tenures, drawing heavily on socio-legal and housing literature.

The authors observe that the implementation of ethnic integration policies is best justified and most easily achieved in leasehold estates that exhibit a strong tenurial relationship with the state retaining a more than notional role. Public housing in Singapore being an exemplar of this model, the implementation of its ethnic integration policy is relatively straightforward. By contrast, the shrinking public housing sector in England means that adoption of a similar policy would have limited reach. Even then, the political–legal environment in England that promotes home ownership is potentially hostile to the adoption of such policy as it may be seen as an infringement of private property right.

The cross-jurisdiction comparison is supplemented by an interdisciplinary analysis that seeks to bridge differences in the categorisation of tenure in housing and law literatures so as to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue.

This article intends to explore the sustainability accounting practices that emerge from the business of artificial forestry in the Qingshui River society of southwest China in the 18th-19th centuries.

Using a historical approach, we set out to discuss the systematic use of “folk contract” as a tool of tracing accountability in timber trading and in the collective management of community forests in this region, based on the archives of Qingshui River Manuscripts.

The findings indicate that active transactions of small forest plots facilitated by the prevalent use of folk contracts allow both the landlords and the tenants to easily acquire cashflow needed any time before the harvest, and in turn prevent premature logging and deforestation for crop farming. An “open ledger” bookkeeping system emerged from the extensive contracting practices guarantees the functioning of a dualistic accountability system, where both market value of timbers and “face” value of community members' reputation are preserved for long-term sustainability of local economy, society and ecological environment.

From the perspective of economic anthropology, this study forms the link between the folk contract practice in sustainable forestry of the Qingshui River society and the emancipatory accounting literature.

This study aims to investigate Australian civil tribunal decisions to ascertain compliance with decisional quality standards in Australian law, with a particular focus on strata and community title cases.

An orthodox doctrinal legal analysis and assessment of cases and tribunal policies was adopted. All Australian jurisdictions were surveyed, including federal, state and territory jurisdictions. The case law in each jurisdiction was screened to identify whether the principles applicable to decisional quality were engaged and then analysed as to the extent of that engagement.

Where a party presents a substantial, clearly particularised argument relying upon established facts, tribunals are obliged to address those facts and the arguments by way of an active intellectual process. However, appellate decisions disclose a degree of deference not often accorded to judicial officers, and there is a need for a more disciplined approach to ascertain whether any errors have been made by a tribunal lie on the critical path to the decision. As strata and community title disputes become more complex, the importance of decisional quality standards can only increase.

Up to date as of 1 March 2023.

The present position would appear to be that where a party presents a substantial, clearly particularised argument relying upon established facts, a tribunal must address its mind to those facts and the arguments by way of an active intellectual process. The requirement is limited to circumstances prescribed by a statute and factual and legal issues which are necessary to be determined in order for the tribunal to be satisfied as to circumstances prescribed by a statute. However, where the errors are not gross and plainly obvious, appeals from defective tribunal decisions are unlikely to succeed. There is a degree of deference not often accorded to judicial officers. That deference is unfortunate when tribunals are allocated jurisdiction over what quite often are significant property disputes.

The impact on community living of uncorrected poor quality tribunal decisions can be immense, depending on the degree of error. For example, water ingress into people’s homes might remain unremedied for many years, as, for example, occurred in the Marinko case.

The research and analysis is entirely original. A search of journals and textbooks did not identify any prior analysis, at least in the Australian context, relating to decisional quality standards of tribunals.

Much like their residential counterparts, commercial leases have a reputation problem. Although often derided as painfully dull and mundane documents, residential leases have begun to be interrogated by socio-legal scholarship with renewed interest. This paper aims to continue this line of work in the commercial context through a detailed examination of a widespread form of leasehold in the pub sector: the “tied lease”.

The paper draws on interviews with 14 publicans and archival research.

The author argues that the lease is a decisive actor in determining the balance of power between publicans and pub-owning companies and shaping the physical environment of pubs in the UK.

The author’s broader agenda is to argue that socio-legal scholars’ renewed interest in leases should not be confined to the residential context: commercial leases warrant far greater socio-legal scholarly attention.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the phrase “just and equitable”, and associated terminology, within New Zealand’s strata law, to inform other jurisdictions. In particular, this paper temporarily suspends the notion of a statutory hendiadys to consider what kind of justice is reflected in judicial consideration of the phrase.

This paper takes a mixed-methods approach, drawing on a combination of black-letter law, property law theory and insights from literary and philosophical analysis.

While justice is often considered as “treating like cases alike”, this is not apparent from this study. The analysis shows that different kinds of justice outcomes emerge, with some emphasis on justice as economic efficiency. In addition, the paper highlights the inherent uncertainty in what is “just and equitable” and how associated disjunctive phrases, such as “unjust or inequitable” are still treated as hendiadys, but are no more clear.

The research is limited to consideration of a single jurisdiction (New Zealand), though the useful degree of case law from this jurisdiction provides broad insight.

Among other things, the paper argues for further consideration of the usefulness of the “just and equitable” test in light of the kind of justice we want to achieve. The addition of mandatory considerations to existing statutory tests may allow more of a focus, beyond the exigencies of individual cases or narrow outcomes of economic efficiency.

While there is existing literature on the “just and equitable” phrase within strata law, the paper is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to provide an analysis focused on how suspending the statutory hendiadys normally inherent in “just and equitable” provides insight into the kind of justice that emerges from the application of this test within a single strata jurisdiction. As such, the paper provides lessons for other jurisdictions on how to improve relevant statute and case law outcomes.