HOMEOWNERSHIP AS THE CAUSE AND THE VICTIM OF THE MORTGAGE CRISIS

Abstract

Behind the systemic crisis originated in the United States of America in 2007 there are legal issues related to the lack or the inefficiency of the typical elements of a modern system of land credit: effective land register, banking system and mortgage securities. Generalization of homeownership has been identified as one of the causes of the crisis origination and now homeownership is suffering its consequences; that is, that which is changed in its financial aspect, affects also its human right one and vice-versa. The article studies how all this is influencing the way by which housing is perceived in current Spanish private legal system, which traditionally has had not paid much attention to it. Moreover, the article stresses that relying on homeownership as the single type of housing tenure entails certain risks, some coming from institutions such as the reverse mortgage or the externalities it causes to other fields of social reality, such as employment. New intermediate tenures in Catalonia are pointed out as possible alternative housing tenures