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

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None of them would dismiss the application, even those who were concerned about the landlord’s contractual entitlement to the rent. When the responses by the district judges to the four scenarios are summarised, as in Table 11 below, the variation in outcomes is apparent. It must be borne in mind, of course, that these were not real cases and many of the judges interviewed came to extremely tentative conclusions about the likely decision they would make. Indeed, one judge declined to opt for any outcome to scenario 7, because: “What would guide me most significantly here, most powerfully, is my assessment of the tenant. And…I don’t know, I honestly don’t know I’m afraid, without that.” (DJ N) Table 11: Application outcomes suggested by district judges to the warrant scenarios Scenario Granted Dismissed Adjourned 7: Single female tenant 17 4 4 7a: Female tenant with children 7b: Tenant offers lump sum 16 0 4 payment 13 2 4 8: Elderly woman tenant; son refuses to contribute to rent despite 14 0 12 non-dependent deduction from HB 99 Number of district judges suggesting each outcome* *Note: not all DJs gave a clear answer to each scenario and there is accordingly not the same total number of answers to each. Within these variations, the noticeably consistent element is that very few of the judges interviewed would refuse the applications to suspend, in any of the scenarios. The interviews revealed some of the techniques which judges used to avoid this outcome. Many district judges said that their suspensions or adjournments would include a review date, to give the tenant “an opportunity for establishing herself as a regular payer”. One district judge explained this approach as a way of ensuring that, at the next hearing, all the information would be available to resolve the matter: “I think these 28 day adjournments are a good idea. Because it won’t go away, this problem: it’s either going to be confronted and sorted within that period, or it isn’t.” (DJ S) Whatever their decision on the scenarios, nearly all of the district judges interviewed said they would take the opportunity to address the tenant directly at the hearing. Their descriptions of this practice varied from an avuncular ‘little talk’ to a ‘stern lecture’. For those who would agree to a further suspension or an adjournment, this would often include informing the tenant that this was her ‘last chance’: “I would give her one of my little talks, saying, ‘I’m making a note of this, and…and you’ve really got to get your act together, because it will be inevitable, I think, that...if you default again, you won’t get another suspension.’ I’d give her one last chance.” (DJ I)
The advice to the tenant was often expressed very directly: “I’d tell her not to be so silly as to go and borrow more” (DJ B). A number of judges would suggest to tenants in this situation that they obtain debt advice, and several would refer the tenant to a CAB or Money Advice Centre. In the case of the elderly tenant whose son was not contributing to the rent, a number of judges said they would suggest to her that she seek legal advice to have her son evicted from the property. Other suggestions were referrals to Age Concern or to Supporting People schemes. Three judges were prepared to intervene to the extent of telling the tenant that her son had to come with her to the next hearing. Procedural considerations The frequently last-minute nature of tenants’ applications to suspend a warrant meant that these cases, seen as extremely important and challenging by the judges, had to be fitted in to an already pressured court list. One district judge expressed concern that: “Applications to suspend warrants are a fairly summary exercise. They aren’t allocated generally speaking more than 10 or 15 minutes, although…I have taken longer.” (DJ K) In one London court there were sometimes as many as 12 applications to suspend listed at 10 am, before the possession list of between 65 and 70 cases started at 10.30; here, however the judge took a more robust view: “If something complicated comes along you’ve always got the option to adjourn it and give it a longer hearing.” (DJ L) District judges were very aware that applications to suspend warrants were among the most serious cases they had to deal with, and one said that: “It’s not inconvenience to me to come in 15 minutes earlier, particularly when…it’s such a decision.” (DJ M) However, in very busy courts, emergency applications inevitably “completely kibosh the rest of the list” (DJ X). In a number of courts the practice is to start a separate bailiff’s file when the claimant applies for an eviction warrant. This administrative process means that if the defendant then applies to suspend the warrant, the judge is not provided with the full court file containing all documents from the claim form onwards. This makes it difficult for district judges to assess the factors that they would wish to take into account, such as the level of arrears and the reasons for making the original order. 100
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The exercise of judicial discretion
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The Research Unit, Department for C
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Contents Executive summary i Chapte
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Executive summary The research ques
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the shift to housing officers appea
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Conclusions A wide and diverse rang
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on the role of judges under the exi
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Northern 1 court hears over 1500 ho
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significance to a particular respon
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The application may be adjourned; t
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such forms are completed in less th
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In November 2001, the Legal Service
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Levels of arrears Although the reas
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Table 2: Rent levels from ODPM stat
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Table 5: Changes in outcomes of ini
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Table 6: Impact of participation on
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The focus group participants consid
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consideration in this chapter, the
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Neither of the judges seemed to con
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chambers, where the possession list
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Most of the district judges felt th
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The views of the claimants’ group
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Qualitative and quantitative data f
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anything to say, and wants to stay
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Table 7: Sources of training and up
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sought with what they know the judg
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Chapter 5: Judges and landlords Int
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Chart 7: Orders granted by requests
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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 and 100: how he dealt with the housing benef
Page 101 and 102: Chapter 8: Particular decisions: gr
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: Chart 13: Impact of family make up
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
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