The exercise of judicial discretion in rent arrears cases - Sheffield ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

claimants are not granted possession in cases where the administration of housing benefit, rather than the tenant, is responsible for the arrears of rent. 87
Chapter 8: Particular decisions: ground 8 cases and warrants for possession Introduction In this Chapter we examine two particular decisions which district judges have to make. The first are those where the landlord is seeking possession against an assured tenant under Ground 8. Secondly, we consider decisions on applications by tenants to suspend warrants for possession. Ground 8 As has been outlined in Chapter 2, where housing associations are seeking to evict assured tenants they may rely on the mandatory ground for possession (Ground 8). As noted, there are some indications that housing associations, particularly in London are increasingly using this ground (Pawson et al, 2005). It would seem likely that the use of Ground 8 was accelerated by two factors in 1996/7. First from 7 September 1996, changes to the housing benefit rules meant that all new claims were paid in arrears. Thus in circumstances where the landlord is paid directly by the local authority (which will be the norm for housing association tenants) the payment will be made four weekly in arrears. Secondly, the number of weeks of arrears required at the date of the notice of seeking possession and hearing was reduced from 13 to 8 weeks by amendment to the Housing Act 1988 by the Housing Act 1996. This increased the likelihood that tenants would have sufficient arrears to satisfy the requirements for Ground 8 to apply. A practice of adjourning Ground 8 claims was described by the claimants’ focus groups and the focus groups felt that this indicated the judges’ lack of knowledge of the law. In fact the legal position is less clear than might be thought. Some judges have taken the view that they do have power to adjourn a Ground 8 case, provided that there has been no evidence heard. The powers of the county court to adjourn Ground 8 cases were considered by the Court of Appeal in North British Housing Association v. Mathews [2004] EWCA Civ 1736. Judgement in the case was given on December 21, 2004, after the data for the study had been collected. In essence the Court of Appeal ruled that the county court’s general power to adjourn is not completely ousted but that it may only be exercised for the purpose of enabling a tenant to reduce the arrears to below the Ground 8 threshold (as opposed e.g. because of the illness of the defendant) in exceptional circumstances (para. [32]). The type of circumstances include where the tenant is on his way to court on the hearing date carrying all the arrears of rent in cash in his pocket, and he is robbed and all his money is stolen and 88
Page 1 and 2:
The exercise of judicial discretion
Page 3 and 4:
The Research Unit, Department for C
Page 6 and 7:
Contents Executive summary i Chapte
Page 8 and 9:
Executive summary The research ques
Page 10 and 11:
the shift to housing officers appea
Page 12:
Conclusions A wide and diverse rang
Page 15 and 16:
on the role of judges under the exi
Page 17 and 18:
Northern 1 court hears over 1500 ho
Page 19 and 20:
significance to a particular respon
Page 21 and 22:
The application may be adjourned; t
Page 23 and 24:
such forms are completed in less th
Page 25 and 26:
In November 2001, the Legal Service
Page 27 and 28:
Levels of arrears Although the reas
Page 29 and 30:
Table 2: Rent levels from ODPM stat
Page 31 and 32:
Table 5: Changes in outcomes of ini
Page 33 and 34:
Table 6: Impact of participation on
Page 35 and 36:
The focus group participants consid
Page 37 and 38:
consideration in this chapter, the
Page 39 and 40:
Neither of the judges seemed to con
Page 41 and 42:
chambers, where the possession list
Page 43 and 44:
Most of the district judges felt th
Page 45 and 46:
The views of the claimants’ group
Page 47 and 48:
Qualitative and quantitative data f
Page 49 and 50: anything to say, and wants to stay
Page 51 and 52: Table 7: Sources of training and up
Page 53 and 54: sought with what they know the judg
Page 55 and 56: Chapter 5: Judges and landlords Int
Page 57 and 58: Chart 7: Orders granted by requests
Page 59 and 60: some unevenness in the impact of re
Page 61 and 62: Thus it can be seen that the type o
Page 63 and 64: District judges differed on how muc
Page 65 and 66: There were three other, more genera
Page 67 and 68: Conclusions In this chapter, we hav
Page 69 and 70: Chapter 6: Judges and tenants Intro
Page 71 and 72: approach he was more confident in t
Page 73 and 74: “I think in terms of exercising d
Page 75 and 76: Family make up The broad powers of
Page 77 and 78: are trying to deal with the particu
Page 79 and 80: “I wouldn’t dream of making an
Page 81 and 82: interpreter. Similarly, many of the
Page 83 and 84: Judges are human too - personal rea
Page 85 and 86: understand the proceedings, a great
Page 87 and 88: What must be emphasised is that whi
Page 89 and 90: also the most common explanation gi
Page 91 and 92: anomalous case of West Country cour
Page 93 and 94: District judges’ knowledge. Some
Page 95 and 96: Two of the judges interviewed felt
Page 97 and 98: DJ: I’d be inclining towards the
Page 99: how he dealt with the housing benef
Page 103 and 104: Table 10: Outcomes in Ground 8 case
Page 105 and 106: Others were, however, prepared to g
Page 107 and 108: It is perhaps not surprising that,
Page 109 and 110: the basis of the original possessio
Page 111 and 112: Chart 13: Impact of family make up
Page 113 and 114: The advice to the tenant was often
Page 115 and 116: Chapter 9: Conclusions Where the la
Page 117 and 118: shows that the vast majority of tho
Page 119 and 120: important determining factors is th
Page 121 and 122: Thus it is likely that that even th
Page 123 and 124: 110
Page 125 and 126: Lawrence J (1995) “Sentencing pro
Page 127 and 128: give a typology of the characterist
Page 129 and 130: In analysing cases percentages have
Page 131 and 132: Appendix 2 - Research instruments 1
Page 133 and 134: What factors would you ascribe thos
Page 135 and 136: 20. Typically, how would you descri
Page 137 and 138: with a duty desk representative who
Page 139: DCA Research Series No. 6/05 The ex
show all

The exercise of judicial discretion in rent arrears cases - Sheffield ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?