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

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2. Judges’ Interview Schedule Judge's background 1. How long have you been a district judge? 2. Which courts do you sit in? 3. Did you have any experience of housing law prior to becoming a district judge? 4. What percentage of your time as a district judge do you spend on housing possession cases? 5. How much housing law training have you received? 6. How do you update your knowledge of housing law? Decision-making in possession cases 7. Do you have a mental checklist of evidence which you expect to see before granting possession? 8. Do you prefer evidence to be given orally or in writing? 9. Do you have a checklist of issues you consider when deciding whether it is reasonable to grant possession? 10. How important are the levels of arrears in your decision-making? Is it the total amount which is most important or the number of weeks that the rent is in arrears? 11. If the tenant attends the hearing, how likely are you to give an outright order for possession? Procedure and external factors 12. Do you feel the CPR has had any impact on the way housing possession cases are conducted? 13. Do you feel the way you deal with cases has changed over the period that you have been a district judge? 14. Are there any local factors which impact on your decision-making? 15. What impact do issues around housing benefit have on your decision-making? 16. How are cases listed for hearing in the court you sit in? What impact does this listing procedure have on your decision-making process? Impact of landlords 17. Typically, how would you describe the quality of the representatives before you from local authority and housing association landlords? On a scale of excellent; good; okay; poor; very poor 18. Does this differ between RSLs and local authorities? 19. Do you find any difference in the approaches of landlords who represent themselves through housing officers and those who use legal representatives? 121
20. Typically, how would you describe your relationship with those representatives? On a scale of excellent; good; okay; poor; very poor 21. How does that relationship impact generally on the decisions that you make? 22. What impact do the requests that landlords make in cases have on your decisionmaking? 23. Do any of the housing associations that appear before you use Ground 8? If so, what is your attitude to dealing with cases under it? Impact of tenants and their representatives 24. What impact does it have on your decision-making if the defendant attends court and/or fills in the reply form? 25. How does the behaviour and attitude of a tenant who attends impact on your decision-making? 26. Do you have representatives for defendants who appear regularly before you? If so, how would you describe their impact on any decision-making? 27. Do you have a duty desk advice scheme operating for possession hearings? If yes, what is your involvement with it and how does it impact on your decision-making? 28. Where tenants do attend, how do you explain the procedure and outcome of the case to them? Warrants for possession 29. What factors do you take into account in deciding whether to suspend a warrant for possession? Are there any limits on the number of times a warrant should be suspended? 30. Where the case has previously been heard and has been adjourned or warrant suspended, does it make any difference to your decision-making if you heard it previously or it was heard by another judge? 122
Page 1 and 2:
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
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Thus it can be seen that the type o
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District judges differed on how muc
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There were three other, more genera
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Conclusions In this chapter, we hav
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Chapter 6: Judges and tenants Intro
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approach he was more confident in t
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“I think in terms of exercising d
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Family make up The broad powers of
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are trying to deal with the particu
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“I wouldn’t dream of making an
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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 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
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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: What factors would you ascribe thos
Page 137 and 138: with a duty desk representative who
Page 139: DCA Research Series No. 6/05 The ex
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