Ageing, Difference and Discrimination: Property Transactions in the Crucible of Human Rights Norms

The emergence and intensification of an international debate concerning the role of human rights norms in addressing difference and discrimination linked to ageing has culminated in the campaign for a new international convention on the rights of older people. At the same time, the demographic and socioeconomic implications of the 'ageing society' have coincided with asset-based welfare to generate a new environment of risk around housing equity transactions. These parallel discourses invoke competing images of the older person as a vulnerable legal subject and a self-responsible autonomous consumer, with the domain of private, market-based property transactions to liquidate housing equity almost exclusively underpinned by a narrative of self-responsible individualism. This paper explores the issues surrounding differential vulnerabilities as they affect older owner's housing equity transactions, and reflects on alternative strategies to develop a coherent theoretical framework for older owners' legal subjectivity.