I heard in the ordinary media of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's campaign in defence of areas of Edinburgh, like Granton and Pilton, against having unjustified negative images and estate agents being negative about folk moving into them. The campaign is obviously in the interest of regenerating deprived areas, and it gave Leith as an already sucessful example. I wrote the following to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and got a nice reply:

I read in the local paper of your work on promoting positivity about
deprived areas of Edinburgh and stop
estate agents prejudicing the public against them.
In 1995 I bought a house in the decent northeast section of the
Abbeyview estate in nearby Dunfermline,
and it was not an ordinary move but my emotive return to Scotland from
growing up in exile. After trouble
from the previous owner involved the police, on my eighth day there the
police lied to me that it was a
rough area. The life ruin can well be imagined, and that permanent
damage was done with snooty older
generation relatives before it became apparent after 2-3 months there
that it was not a rough area at all.I
was able to make a police complaint about it through my solicitor, and
forced the police inspector to admit
the truth, that it's as good as anywhere in Dunfermline. But they
claimed the liar had exercised his free
speech to have a "personal opinion" that was not liable to be
accurate!
I had a letter about it published in the Dunfermline Press 8-12-95, so
it is on unchallenged public record and
there is no defamation issue in speaking out about this. But I have
never found housing protest groups
interested in it, and naturally I have not got any straight answer
interest from politicians - even including
the SNP, considering that state malice against a return to Scotland was
involved. I may have had a local
political effect in preventing the police abandoning Abbeyview to urban
decay, for since 1998 there has
been extensive demolition of flat roof type damp council flats there,
that began just as a council initiative
and began with a street next to mine. Now, there is an EU regeneration
project there, so it is a success
story, but without folk knowing about my experience. Will you add it to
your campaign?

Maurice Frank

Further to the contents of this letter, there was a fantastic implication of what happened to me, that has been under media silence for 8 years. I sent it recorded delivery to all the normal media at the time. It has also shockingly been ignored by the well known lobby groups on housing. It is that -
rent and mortgages no longer constitutionally exist.
I presented this claim to a Scottish Civic Assembly, and announced it at a Glasgow Declaration on Poverty, both in 1996, and leafletted on it during the 1997 election and referendum and poverty day demonstration.
It follows because the police made a constitutional claim of free speech in defence of having lied to me, but to say an area was rough that in fact was not, was misinformationt o the public about where civil order exists, which is against the "rule of law" principle. Consequently, 2 standard constitutional principles of democracy are in insoluble conflict whenever you are exposed to receiving information from the police about what civil order is like in a place that is new to you. That makes it unconstitutional to place anyone in this position, and that includes, to make anyone move to a new home.
I was moving voluntarily, but this means no one can be made to move involuntarily, by eviction. An exception is domestic violence, where the perpetrator has rejected civil order himself. But in all other circumstances, evictions no longer constitutionally exist. That means contracts involving threat of eviction, rent and mortgages and leases, no longer constitutionally exist. It also applies to not allowing youth to be evicted from family homes. It means everyone is the automatic owner of their home, and the only housing system that this leaves workable is that when you move you cease to own your home and leave it in a pool for someone else to move into. This would mean there can't be any rough areas, or areas controlled by terrorists, because people could vote with their feet against living in them.
Imagine the effect on homelessness if this had not been successfully suppressed by the media in 1995-6 in the time of mass mortgage repossessions. Remember this is a constitutional claim, to be made widely known, it's not something to try in a court as long as it's not widely known. Same as in 1910-11 the Lords' veto of the Budget had to be established as unconstitutional before it became illegal.
How widely does this apply? I suggest throughout the EU at least.