Abstract
Summary
The article concerns issues of legal nature of legal relation between a housing cooperative and its member resulting from building agreements and agreement of establishing cooperative residents? right to accommodation. They can have prospectively corporative (cooperative), obligational or mixed legal nature. Basically the dispute concerns the question whether they are specific legal relations normalized by regulations of cooperative law, which differ from typical obligational relation and cannot be identified with it, or quite contrary, they can be considered as typical obligational relations.
These problematic aspects appeared in Polish writing and judicature in the 1960s due to two glosses ? Z. Radwański and J. Ignatowicz. The former standed for recognizing relations between a housing cooperative and its member as obligational relations, whereas the latter quite contrary, recognized them as specific legal relations normalized by regulations of cooperative law, which differ from typical obligational relation and cannot be identified with it. However, the issues have not been settled and it is still not adjudicated, despite its theoretical and practical significance.
Instead, the issues were the subject of keen interest in German writing. The present article refers to views worded there by virtue of their extent and importance. In my opinion, crucial for further considerations in this scope is the distinction included in German writing between freedom of contracting and freedom of establishing associations (Vereinigungsfreiheit). Therefore, vital importance has the issue which of the freedoms underlines legal relations between a housing cooperative and its member.
The further part of the article includes discussing arguments vital at assessment of the legal nature of discussed legal relations, for example, double position of a member as a sharer of a housing cooperative and a party of legal relations, organizational dependance, connection with a membership.
The article closes with conclusions that the discussed relations are characterized by cooperative character and therefore they are not typical obligational relations. The consequence of that is, among others, impossibility of acknowledging resolutions of housing cooperative organs shaping the rates for conventional pattern from civil code.