Central theme
The general aims of the Working Group are to promote dialogue and European research on the importance of law, rights and regulation to all aspects of housing, land and planning. These objectives continue to be very broad to accommodate national differences.

Besides their political, social, and economic implications, housing, land and planning are profoundly influenced by varying national legal environments. International exchange in this area has always been handicapped by quite different national approaches and traditional groupings of legal and socio-legal expertise, despite drives towards European harmonization have not explicitly dealt with land law, but affect this strongly.

This group aims to promote exchange and debate between people in the same area as well as promoting understanding of the multiple types of relevant law. Legal, economic, sociological and philosophical theories are welcome, as well as sociological empirical work on the implementation of law, to improve understanding and expertise across borders.

Activities and output in recent years
A symposium on Housing Law was held by the group in March 2017 at the University of Malmo, Sweden. Over 30 people attended and there were over 20 presentations.

A volume of papers entitled ‘Regulating the City: Contemporary Urban Housing law’ was published in early 2017 edited by Julian Sidoli del Ceno and Michel Vols. This is the first volume of what will be a series of monographs and edited collections in the field of housing law. Further volumes are planned featuring papers collected from the annual symposium and the main ENHR Conference’s Housing Law group’s workshop.

The Housing Law Working Group met again at the main ENHR conference in Tirana in September 2017 and over 10 papers were presented. Contributors came from many European countries. Our Working Group member professor Sergio Nasarre-Aznar was one of the keynote speakers at the conference.

Another symposium on Housing Law was organised by the group (together with prof. Christoph Schmid of the TENLAW project) on 28 and 29 September 2017 in Groningen, the Netherlands. Over 30 people attended and there were more than 15 presentations.

The Housing Law Working Group met again at the main ENHR conference in Uppsala in June 2018 and over 20 papers were presented. Contributors came from European countries, as well as South Africa and Canada.

A symposium on Housing Law was held by the group in October 2018 at the University of Malta. Over 30 people attended and there were over 20 presentations. A symposium lunch and dinner was held. This was funded by the University of Malta. Thanks goes in particular to dr. Kurt Xerri for organising this symposium

The Housing Law Working Group met at the main ENHR conference in Athens 2019 and over 15 papers were presented. Contributors came from various European countries.

Future plans and activities
The next Working Group seminar will take place at the yearly ENHR conference in Cyprus in 2020. It is hoped that the seminar will be a friendly and welcoming forum for the exchange of ideas.
The Working Group is also planning to organise an informal seminar in the Coimbra of 2020.

Policy implications
Members of the Working Group are involved in several research projects funded by the European Union and national governments (e.g. the TENLAW project). In most of the papers presented at the Working Group meetings the presenters discuss policy implications of their legal research too.

Other
–