Housing Associations: a Legal Handbook

Housing Association Law is the definitive legal guide providing a comprehensive picture of the law affecting housing associations and social landlords. Originally published in 1987 (as Housing Association Law: The Law of Social Landlords, and subsequently as Housing Association Law and Practice), LAG is pleased to be releasing the first new edition in 15 years of this renowned title by Dr Christopher Handy and Professor John Alder. This is the only book that deals exclusively with housing associations and social landlords from a multi-disciplinary perspective, bringing together material from all the relevant branches of the law: public, housing, corporate, charity and tax law. The new, fully updated edition of Housing Association Law comes at a time when housing associations are increasingly important and are neglected in the legal literature. Housing association law is often treated as a marginal topic, buried in the footnotes and lacking distinctive principles. In fact, ever since local authority housing development was killed off late in the last century, housing associations have become the main providers of social housing in the UK with a corresponding growth in government regulation of the sector. They have been regarded as a bridge between the public and private sectors, a position that has become increasingly fuzzy. The book aims to provide a framework for the housing practitioner and lawyer working in or with the sector. It also seeks to provide an introduction for students. For those already acquainted with social housing law we hope to provide perspectives and insights demonstrating how the law has evolved and developed in this rapidly changing sector. We try to identify the principles and rules peculiar to housing associations and to highlight other areas of law which have a distinctive application to the sector. Practitioners specialising in this area of the law, housing associations, local government departments, voluntary housing bodies and housing association members will find that this book is indispensable. It will also prove invaluable to students studying housing law and those with an interest in urban studies.