Landlordism

Introduction To Social Research Assignment 1 By Aaron Collins

Discuss the view that structured interviews would best elicit an indication of general attitudes towards the behaviour of landlords providing student accommodation in Leeds .

The theory I felt that would best associated with this question was the theory of Landlordism. Landlordism is the form of privilege or interference with the free market in which one state supported group ‘owns’ the land and thereby takes tribute (rent) from those who live, work, or produce on the land. Landlordism is often associated with capitalism. Similar to those capitalists that may own a factory and earn money through their labourers , a landlord will make money through his or hers tenants. Anti capitalists are usually against the idea of landlordism also. Alfred Wallace is a sociologist who wrote a book called ‘Land Nationalisation’. His theory on Landlordism is one of negative attitudes. His basic description of the idea of Landlordism is as follows: “The great landlord is necessarily a monopolist and a despot. The land is his own to be dealt with as he pleases; and the greater the income he can derive from it, the greater share he can secure to himself of the produce of others’ labour upon it, the more respect and admiration he usually receives. In every step he takes to secure this end he is supported by the power and majesty of the law. His tenants have no rights on the soil buts such as he allows them. Whatever added value their labour has given to the land, in the absence of special agreement becomes his and not theirs. If they offend him in any way, if they refuse to act against their political convictions, if they are too demonstrative in their claims for religious equality, he may , and not infrequently does, eject them from the house in which they and their fathers were born, and from the land which they have industriously tilled for generations, more for his benefit than for their own.” Wallace talks a lot about conflicting interests between tenants and landlords which somewhere down the line could cause problems. When these problems occur the landlord usually exerts his power and therefore evicts the tenants and will be relatively better off then the tenants in the long run. Who is to blame for the conflict is not always important. There are key concepts that would need to be researched to see which parts of this theory are accurate . First of all the rights of both the landlord and tenants would need to be researched accurately. The best way to get accurate results for the concept of rights is to research the law. Landlords rights and tenants rights have had certain laws associated with them which need to be both addressed by both parties before an agreement is signed. These should be easily accessible if researched correctly through quantitative methods of secondary sources. The idea of ‘power’ when associated with the landlord is also something I would research. As the landlord actually owns the house or land it is therefore mainly his responsibility. It is his choice if he is to rent it to a tenant. However when the tenant is in place and paying rent , how much influence does the landlord wield? I suspect every case is slightly different. There may be cases in which the landlord will influence the way the tenants live and use his property. There may also be cases where the landlord has little influence and leaves his tenants to live how they like as long as rent is being received. As each case is different then perhaps qualitative methods in the form of structured interviews with both tenants and landlords would be useful, especially in finding the relevant variables. Finally I feel the idea of ‘eviction’ is important. Why do landlords evict tenants and are their reasons consistent? Perhaps the best way to achieve these results would be through quantitative methods, firstly to find out who has been evicted, and did they feel it was just. The best way to achieve this is a simple questionnaire. The research proposal I would use would fit into the category of ‘Applied research’. I would use students in Headingly in Leeds as my research subjects, due to the large quantity of population and the low amount of variables .As I stated before I would split my research into three parts. The first part being research into secondary sources to find the relevant laws associated with Landlordism. These laws would give me the perfect foundation to my study, and also with this knowledge be able to an analyse further results to make sure they fit into the law. Secondly my structured interview would allow me to acknowledge the variables associated with the relationships between landlord and tenant. What influence is wielded by the landlord and how does the tenant feel about it? These sort of answers would enable me to analyse any connections between influence and rate of eviction, as well as understanding how tenants prefer their landlord to act and if it has an effect on their own behaviour. The third part of my research would be to find out about eviction. Who gets evicted and why do they get evicted? A questionnaire among certain tenants in a similar area asking about their behaviour, if they have ever been evicted , why they were evicted and did they feel it was just? These results will show what landlords evict their tenants for , and also the range in severity of these reasons. There may be a problem with bias with my research proposal. Firstly any tenant who has been evicted may feel animosity towards their previous landlord whoever may have been in the wrong. This animosity could lead to untruthful answers. Also landlords may want to appear more generous and easy going then they really are during interviews which would also lead to false accounts of their influence. There would also be the drawback of having mainly students as research. There is an obvious difference between the way professionals in the tenancy role would act and the way students would. However Headingly has a large amount of tenants and the sheer amount of research possible would be a positive. In conclusion structured interviews may not be the best way possible to understand the attitudes directed towards landlords in Leeds. There is a risk of a lot of bias directed towards the landlords and this could effect results making them inaccurate. However The only way really to understand peoples attitudes is to ask them. The students may feel hard done by, or taken advantage of but there may be a reason for this. If efforts were to be made into detailed quantitative research then this would add more depth to the structured interviews. Quantitative research would enable the researcher to find any patterns that may exist. As questionnaires only really provide simple answers, the researcher will have more of an understanding into what answers he wants to know the reasons behind giving the interview a clearer structure and a more clear goal.