A False Hope?: A Critical Evaluation of the Difference made by the Human Rights Act to those who Rent Homes
| Author | Victoria Ferguson |
| Pages | 93-104 |
S.S.L.R. Human Rights Act and Home Rental
93
Vol. 1
A False Hope?: A Critical Evaluation of the
Difference made by the Human Rights Act to those
who Rent Homes
Victoria Ferguson
Scholars believed that the Human Rights Act 1998 would compel the courts to
address the much derided injustices of housing law and therefore lead to
much stronger rights and protection for tenants. This article, through an
examination of case law, evaluates whether the Act has had any impact at all
for the different categories of tenants and on the three stages of housing law:
acquiring a home, rights of succession and rights of repossession. Although
the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Manchester County Council v
Pinnock finally accepted the European jurisprudence, this development will
only lead to a variation for a very small proportion of tenants, namely those in
local authority housing who were previously liable to have non-merit-based
proceedings brought against them. The article will conclude that the only
other difference is that homosexual tenants now have the same rights as their
heterosexual counterparts have, and therefore it is clear that the Human
Rights Act has not had anywhere near the sweeping effect that was predicted
for housing law.
Introduction
hen the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on October 2, 2000
it was believed by many academics and practitioners that the
domestic application of the European Convention on Human Rights
would bring significant changes to housing law
1, particularly to
landlord and tenant related litigation. It was hoped that it would address
perceived injustices such as the rule in Greenwich LBC v McGrady2, whereby
a joint tenant may unilaterally end the joint tenancy - thus leaving the other a
de jure trespasser, and the discrimination between heterosexual and
homosexual cohabitants in cases of succession. However, it soon became
1 Loveland, „Much Ado About Not Very Much After All? The (latest) last word on the relevance of the ECHR, article 8 to
possession proceedings (2006) JPL, at [1457]
2 Greenwich LBC v McGrady [1983] 46 P. & C.R. 223
W
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