Forced relocation and tenancy law in Europe

Tenants are in a vulnerable position in relation to investments by landlords in their homes. Both, overinvestment, resulting in gentrification, and underinvestment, resulting in deterioration, are processes that have been well analysed in studies on gentrification and rent control. Much less is known about institutions that seek to ensure a balance between overinvestment and underinvestment. Tenancy law may be one of these institutions. Based on a Europe-wide survey of tenancy law produced by the FP7 TENLAW project, this paper analyses the role of tenancy law in the legal positions of tenants towards investments by landlords in their properties. A special focus is on the position of tenants in urban renewal, especially since urban renewal may result in the relocation of current tenants through the force of law. The legal relationships between landlord and tenant are classified by four ideal typical positions - namely short-term contracts, in which security ends with the termination of the contract, long-term contracts, which provide tenants more security of tenure, but which have also provisions to terminate the contract for reasons of urban renewal, protected tenants, who can only be relocated if a suitable alternative dwelling is provided, and informal users, who cannot rely on the safeguard of a rental contract, but have some legal protection based on the European Convention of Human Rights.