Abstract

Property owners and renters form two heterogeneous categories whose asymmetrical relation is not always favorable to the former. Thus from the legal point of view, the distribution of rights is not at all self-evident because the occupancy of and settling into a house the material transformation of possession tend to confer on the renter a form of "de facto" possession that can compete with the legal title of the property owner. Such competition is all the more likely since the rental contract has no legal attestation. The property owner is also bound by moral imperatives which push him to concede housing for the poor freely or at a good price, as well as to grant late payments but to the respectable poor having fallen from their social status. However the rental market, characterized by a permanent demand for housing that is difficult to satisfy, is not free from conflict between property owners and renters. But these conflicts do not become collective disputes, proof without a doubt of the eminently singular and personal character of each relationship between owner and renter. Conflict puts those people tied by reciprocal, mutually dependent relationships face to face (the need for housing on one side, the fear of the renter's potential insolvency on the other). This is why conflict is often resolved via negotiation and compromise before being brought before the courts and without the claimants filing suit.