Legal challenges in ensuring regular maintenance and repairs of owner‐occupied apartment blocks
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare different apartment ownership systems and analyze how to enhance the regular maintenance and repair of owner‐occupied apartment buildings. The dwellings themselves are often in fairly good condition, but the common parts (e.g. walls, roofs, stairwells, and technical installations) are often poorly maintained.Design/methodology/approach – Apartment ownership systems in ten European countries (Austria, England, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) are analyzed, along with Canada, China, Russia, and the USA, and some of the main findings from each country are presented. The material studied is primary legal sources together with the relevant literature.Findings – It seems that there are severe obstacles in the legislation of many countries. Some of these obstacles are: the non‐existence of a proper decision‐making body (e.g. homeowners' association); the wide use of a qualified majority, or even the use of consensu...
Property law as a barrier to energy upgrades in multi-owned properties: insights from a study of England and Scotland
Is the law of ownership a barrier to energy upgrades in apartment blocks? Co-owners in multi-owned properties face challenges in reaching agreement to implement energy efficiency measures that owners of single family residences do not encounter. At the European level, this difficulty is recognised in Article 19 of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive, by which governments are obliged to address barriers to improvements which arise in the specific context of multi-owner properties. Despite this, the position of apartment owners remains mostly invisible in the policy discourse. The small quantity of literature examining the difficulties of group decision making around energy efficiency in apartments has so far focused on mapping the issues. This paper begins the process of ‘colouring in’ the existing outlines by providing an in-depth delineation of the governance barriers to energy upgrades presented by the law of ownership and management in two European jurisdictions: England and Scotland. A doctrinal analysis is employed to ascertain the relevant legal issues and identify how property law constitutes a barrier to energy upgrades within the framework of existing behavioural models. A theoretical inquiry is then used to suggest that reconceptualising property law in the context of multi-owner properties to focus on collective responsibilities rather than individual rights may help to minimise this effect of the law. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research to identify the range of issues property law presents across EU member states. This data is needed to fully test the reconceptualisation hypothesis presented here.
Heat Transfer Characteristic for a New Plate Metal Hydride Reactor
The property of major metal hydride reactors in the world was analyzed and a new plate metal hydride reactor was designed.An experimental facility to test the metal hydride reactor was also designed correspondingly.The effective thermal conductivity of the plate metal hydride reactor was measured by varying the initial metal hydride packing fraction,the kind of filled gas and the pressure of the filled gas,cycle numbers.The test results show that the effective thermal conductivity of the reactor,has exceeded(7.5) W/(m·K) before activation,which is increased greatly.After alloy activation,the effective thermal conductivity of the reactor has a linear change trend with the hydrogen pressure during the interval 0.1~3.5 MPa.The effective thermal conductivity of the reactor just only decreases quickly at the beginning,but becomes stable after several cycles.