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

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3. Scenarios for judges 1. A local authority is seeking possession against a tenant who was granted a tenancy 18 months ago. The rent is £45 per week. The arrears are currently £2700. The landlord tells you the tenant is a single male, who has barely paid any rent since he moved in. Also that the tenant was on housing benefit when he first moved in, but the landlord understands he subsequently obtained work, but he has not paid since the housing benefit stopped. Despite efforts, they have not been able to make any contact with him. They are seeking an outright order. The tenant does not attend. What difference would it make if the arrears were £495? What difference would it make if the landlord disclosed that the tenant had mental health problems and an independent voluntary agency is providing floating support? Would it make any difference if the tenant turned up in court offering to make a payment of £500 and rent plus £20 per week? Would the landlord’s attitude to the offer impact on your decision? 2. The local authority is seeking possession against a tenant who was granted a tenancy 3 years ago. The rent is £75 per week. The arrears are currently £1125. The landlord tells you that the tenant is a single mother with two children of school age who is in parttime work. She is on partial housing benefit but regularly fails to make up the shortfall. The landlord says that she has failed to stick to several agreements to pay off the arrears. They have met with her and agreed a suspended order on terms of rent plus £5.00 per week. The tenant does not attend. What difference would it make if no agreement had been reached and they simply requested an order on those terms? What difference would it make if the arrears were only £450? What difference would it make if the tenant attended, and was represented by the duty desk who explained various health difficulties that her children had been having, and sought that the matter be adjourned on terms? Would it make a difference if the information about the children was in a reply form, but the tenant did not attend? How would you approach the case if the tenant appeared in front of you unrepresented but apparently not able to understand English? 3. A local authority is seeking possession against a tenant, who was granted a tenancy four months ago. The rent is £55 per week. No rent has been paid since the tenant moved in and arrears are £935. The tenant, a single woman attends and tells you that she is unemployed and has submitted a housing benefit claim. She has tried to contact housing benefit, but has not been able to find out what has happened. The housing officer tells you that she (the housing officer) has contacted housing benefit that morning. The housing benefit office state categorically that they have written to the tenant asking for further information, and until that information is received the claim cannot be processed. 4. A housing association is seeking possession under Ground 8 of the Housing Act 1988. The rent is £95 per week. The arrears are currently £950, which is a reduction since the NSP was issued. The arrears have a history of fluctuating. The tenant appears in court 123
with a duty desk representative who says that the tenant has a current application for back-dated housing benefit which is pending and which will clear the arrears. The fluctuations in arrears have generally been due to housing benefit problems. Would it make any difference if the landlord included in evidence a letter previously sent to the tenant complaining about her anti-social behaviour? How would you respond if the representative stated that there was a potential counterclaim and wanted an adjournment to pursue it? 5. A local authority is seeking possession against a tenant whose rent is £75 per week, which includes £3.55 per week in water rates. The tenant receives full housing benefit. The tenant has arrears of £177.50 which relate entirely to the failure to pay her water rates. The local authority state that the tenant has not responded to any letters and they are seeking outright possession. The tenant does not attend. What difference would it make if the landlord was only seeking a suspended order of rent plus £2.80? 6. The landlord is a housing association, seeking possession against a tenant, who was granted a tenancy four years ago. The rent is £105 per week. The landlord tells you that the tenant is self-employed, has a wife and two children of school age. The tenant has a history, since the start of the tenancy, of building up arrears and then making lump sum payments which while they never clear the arrears reduce them substantially. NSPs have been issued on 2 previous occasions, but a sufficiently large sum was paid off the arrears that the association did not proceed to issue proceedings. When the current NSP was issued, the arrears stood at £1890. Since that time the tenant has made two payments of £600 each to the association. The association is nonetheless asking for a suspended possession order of rent plus £10 per week. The tenant does not attend. What difference would it make if the association was asking for outright possession? What difference would it make if the tenant did attend and offered a further lump sum of £200? What order for costs would you make in the event of: the tenant not attending The tenant attending offering a lump sum? 7. The tenant is making an application to suspend a warrant for possession, made in favour of her housing association landlord. A suspended possession order was made against the tenant six months ago on payment of rent plus £4.50 per week. The tenant is in work. She has only paid intermittently since the order was made, and arrears have risen from £750 at the time of the order to £975 now. You have already granted one suspension of the warrant, at which time the tenant explained that she had had difficulties because she had had to pay out for car repairs in order to still be able to get to work. At this current application there have been no material changes in her circumstances, although she says she is having difficulty making ends meet. Would it make a difference to your decision if she had children? What difference would it make if the tenant said she could borrow all the outstanding arrears? 124
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
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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 and 134: What factors would you ascribe thos
Page 135: 20. Typically, how would you descri
Page 139: DCA Research Series No. 6/05 The ex
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