Narratives of property and the limits of legal reform in the English leasehold system and its counterparts in other jurisdictions

This chapter focuses on what an analysis of property narratives may offer for understanding problematic issues associated with self-managed housing. A number of factors, including legal discourse, have combined to create this successful meta-narrative of property which provides an unquestioned, universal explanation of how things are in the world. The term “multi-owned housing” encompasses master-planned housing estates, gated communities, apartment blocks and large houses converted into apartments – or flats as they are known in England. In multi-owned housing, the owners hold rights in common over the shared spaces. Leasehold tenure dates to the Middle Ages when feudal lords granted the right to use a part of their land for a predetermined length of time, in exchange for work or produce. Commonhold is presented as the “us and ourselves” version of property relations. The exclusionary, individualistic meta-narrative of property also places importance on clear boundaries between private and collective space.