Clara Potter and Lauren Godshall, ‘Renting at the Edge of the World: Climate Change Protections Failing Renters’, 74 Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 117 (2024). When teaching property law, professors often reference the historical distinction between the freehold estate and the nonfreehold estate. The nobles held the freehold estates; the peasants held the nonfreehold estates. Thus, ‘from the beginning, the nonfreehold estate was seen as less important and less prestigious than the freehold estate’. Because the landlord/tenant relationship evolved from the nonfreehold estate, one might deduce that tenants are ‘less important and less prestigious’ than property owners and thus, are less deserving of legal protections than owners of a fee simple. Professors Clara Potter and Lauren Godshall, in their article ‘Renting at the Edge of the World: Climate Change Protections Failing Renters’, test whether that deduction is accurate and enduring … (more)
[Serena Williams, JOTWELL, 29 September 2025]
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