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

Attitudes to tenant at hearings to suspend a warrant
Several judges felt that last-minute involvement in the possession process, and indeed lastminute
applications, reflected badly both on the tenant’s ability to organise their life, and on
their commitment to the tenancy:
“Often they come in at three o’clock in the afternoon before the morning of the
eviction…if it was my roof over my head at risk…I’d be down the court like a shot.”
(DJ I)
One judge was concerned that this might almost amount to a deliberate tactic by the local
CAB, which she felt might have been:
“telling people that if you go at the very last minute, and you know… and particularly,
go along with your children, that you’re more likely to have your warrant suspended.
And actually that isn’t the case with me, because my first question is, ‘Well, you knew
that you’d got an eviction date three weeks ago so why have you left it till this
morning?’ And unless they can come up with a good reason…” (DJ Y)
Responses to warrant scenarios
In the interview, district judges were presented with a scenario involving a request by a
single woman to suspend a warrant for possession. She had only paid rent intermittently
since the suspended possession order was made and the arrears had risen from £750 to
£975. The defendant had already been granted one suspension of the warrant and there
had been no material change in her circumstances.
In response to this set of facts many judges expressed concern about the defendant’s failure
to adhere to the terms of the earlier suspension, but when asked to decide what order to
make the majority thought that the defendant should be given one last chance. There were
however, a minority of judges who felt that in a case involving a single person there were
insufficient grounds to agree to the suspension and who therefore decided to refuse the
application. This group spoke of their ‘difficulty’ in suspending a warrant where there had
already been one suspension and the tenant’s circumstances did not appear to have
changed, in the absence of ‘persuasion’ or ‘convincing’ evidence from the tenant:
“I would have some difficulty in suspending this warrant I think… Particularly if she
lived there on her own I’d have difficulty in suspending that. I mean she has had one
opportunity already, and there is just no real explanation as to why she’s got herself
into difficulties…” (DJ R)
When presented with an identical scenario save for the fact that, rather than a single person,
the defendant was identified as a mother with dependant children, all those who had
originally said they would refuse the application to suspend the warrant subsequently agreed
to either adjourn the case on terms or to suspend the warrant for one further time, as
illustrated in Chart 13 below.
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