Housing and the right to property

Jessie Hohmann

Chapter 4 in Housing and Human Rights, 2026, pp 90-118 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter builds on the previous chapter's analysis of the right to housing to consider whether housing rights and property rights are in tension, or whether there are synergies between them. It first addresses justifications for protecting property as a human right, noting how these justifications are often tied to property ownership. It then examines how property rights are codified in human rights law, showing that any human right to property ownership is uncertain, and rights to property are subject to significant limitations. Addressing whether property rights and housing are always in competition, the chapter concludes that complementarities between the right to housing and the right to property exist, so long as we move beyond a narrow conception of private property as exclusive and absolutist and take in alternative conceptions such as the social function doctrine of property and communal and Indigenous forms of property.

Keywords: Private Property; Ownership; Social Function Doctrine of Property; Indigenous Property; Communal Property; Property Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035309733
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035309740.00009 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22208_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().