The Role of Residential Communities in Local Government: A Comparative Study

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K13599
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Fundamental law
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: ITAMOCHI Kengo 神戸大学, 法学研究科, 准教授 (20632227)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 英米法 / アメリカ法 / イギリス法 / 住宅 / 物権 / 団体 / 比較法 / 地方自治

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Residential communities play some public roles which local authorities traditionally have been doing. Some condominiums in the United States, for example, have their own roads, parks, utilities and other infrastructure and levy money for such facilities and services from unit-owners in the community. They can legally have collective decision-making structures to bind objecting, minority unit-owners. This can be regarded as a variant of local government.
This project aims to research laws and practices of such residential communities by comparing Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each jurisdiction has its own legal rules for the communities, partly because of the difference in general property law. For example, a community can bind the new homeowner who purchases a home therein to pay periodical assessments in the US; whereas in the UK they cannot do the same thing by allocating freeholds to the members so they have been using leaseholds, though some push the reform.

Free Research Field

英米法

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の直接的な意義として、日本で多くの集合住宅が建替えや修繕等を必要としつつ人口減少にともなって住宅需要が低下していく中で、そもそも集合住宅等の住宅コミュニティの集合的管理に係る法的規律を英米の事情と比較しつつ検討したことがある。そもそも新築住宅の保有を促進する政策が続いているなどのより大きな問題も無視できないものの、具体的な内部規律を見直す必要はあろう。
間接的な意義として、日本の法学において英米の不動産法の研究はあまり盛んでなかったところ、ここを補うメリットを認めることができる。