It was announced on 24 October that GDP in the United Kingdom in the third quarter of 2008 fell by 0.5 percent. This follows nil growth in the second quarter, thus delaying for another quarter the inevitable conclusion that the United Kingdom is in official recession. It is nearly 16 years since the United Kingdom was last in recession — we seek to learn from history, but history does not always repeat itself.

This article looks at the trends in property law that were observed in the last recession in the United Kingdom and that might repeat themselves this time — and what might be different now. By definition, the legal context in each country is different, and the points raised in this article will apply largely only to the United Kingdom. Each country — even within the quasi-harmonised format that comes with European Union membership — will have a different legal framework for the tenant-landlord relationship and different ways of dealing