The ICA and Cooperative Housing International (CHI) have joined forces for the International Legal Research and Analysis Initiative (ILRAI), a collaborative effort to amass information on cooperative housing law.
Tailored regulations are essential for housing cooperatives to compete fairly with other businesses. In the absence of proper legal frameworks, cooperatives may encounter difficulties, whereas supportive regulations can foster growth and innovation. Therefore, the ICA offices and members need a thorough understanding of cooperative legislation. This knowledge empowers them to advocate for or recommend specific legal structures for housing cooperatives.
The process involves documenting unified laws and policies, tracking their development, and acquiring expert insights from diverse jurisdictions to formulate principles for housing cooperative laws. Housing cooperative laws exhibit significant variations between jurisdictions. The team will scrutinise aspects such as governance structures, membership rights and obligations, financing and taxation, dispute resolution mechanisms, and regulatory oversight.
This comprehensive approach aims to establish a framework that ensures the ongoing success of housing cooperatives while safeguarding the rights and interests of their members. The goal of the project is to ensure the continued success of housing cooperatives while protecting the rights and interests of the members and securing the distinct legal personality and status of cooperatives as enshrined in international law.
Participants of the first interview included Santosh Kumar, Director of Legislation at the ICA; Dimitri Paratte, a PhD candidate working on cooperative housing law at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland; Sandra Turgeon, Managing Director of the Confédération québécoise des coopératives d'habitation (CQCH) in Canada; and Julie LaPalme, Secretary-General of CHI. The second interview was organized with HSB Sweden, the country’s biggest federation of cooperative housing, and the third interview will take place with Zimbabwe National Association of Housing Cooperatives (ZINAHCO)
For more information, please see https://www.housinginternational.coop/news/international-legal-research-and-analysis-initiative/
