Abstract: Security that comes along with land tenure and property rights of the urban poor settlements has been a subject of discussion for many years. It is a well-known fact that the residents of these settlements may feel secured through different forms of tenure, ranging from statutory to customary arrangements. Perceived tenure is one such form or tenure typology, where the inhabitants feel secured despite the absence of legal tenure. In particular, most often this phenomenon can be found in the squatter settlements. However, understanding the degree of perceived security is not an easy task, as it depends on various contributing factors. This paper is a scholastic attempt to assess the impact of various identified context specific factors that contribute to the perceived security of tenure in squatter settlements. For this purpose, different generic notional typologies were reviewed. Based on the identified factors, two squatter settlements located in the hazardous areas in the Indian city of Vijayawada were studied. The case studies were carried out through documentation, mapping and response recording. A comparative analysis was done to assess their impact on the degree of perceived security through the Likert scale method. Further, these factors were classified into three categories i.e., low, medium and high. Based on their impact, a conceptual model for understanding the perceived security of tenure in squatter settlements was developed.

Keywords: Perceived tenure, tenure security, squatter settlements.