This classic and pathbreaking study in the sociology of law has won multiple academic awards for its insight, clarity, and broad import in examining the UK's Rent Acts and landlord behavior over a period of time in the 1960s and 1970s. Not just a revelation of the unintended consequences of well-meaning tenant reforms-though it certainly does lay bare the bizarre side-effects of a law presented as protecting tenants from unscrupulous landlords-the book is a deeper penetration into the very notion of reform legislation, class dominance, competing interests, and the counter-use of reformist law as a weapon by those intended to be regulated. The study even questions the very notion of who really was the intended beneficiary or target of some of the housing reforms passed by Parliament to much fanfare and chest-thumping. Adding a new and reflective 2013 Preface by the author, the Classics of Law & Society edition of this recognized and much-cited book includes modern formatting but still embeds the pagination from the original-for continuity of citations, referencing, and classroom assignment.