ABSTRACT
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.
