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

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3. Interviews with district judges Interviews were carried out with 26 district judges. Judges in the three geographical areas were approached through the District Judges Association, and asked to take part in the research. Judges were free to refuse. Interviews lasted between one and two hours and were recorded and transcribed. The interviews were structured into two broad parts. The first part drew on a semi-structured questionnaire around a number of key topics about the judge’s background experience; their approach to decision-making in possession cases; their views about procedure and external factors (including housing benefit); the impact of landlords and their representatives; and the impact of tenants and their representatives; finally, they were asked about warrants of possession. This part of the interview was designed to elicit information about the influences on decision-making, for example from their training to the kinds of considerations about ‘repeat players’ which are mentioned in the literature (see further Chapter 5, below). (See Appendix 2 for the interview schedule.) The second part of the interview involved the presentation of scenarios to the judges to gauge their responses to them, the order they would make in that case on the basis of the facts provided in the scenario, and their explanations for making that order. The scenarios are set out in Appendix 2, and also included at relevant points in the report. This part of the interview was designed to overcome the problem, anticipated by the research team, that district judges would not feel able to talk about specific cases. The scenarios were developed, then, to reflect the run-of-the-mill, ordinary possession case with a number of variations reflecting variously increased vulnerability of the occupier, issues with housing benefit, technical problems with non-rent expenses, possible variations on the worthiness of the occupier. In order to prepare these scenarios, a focus group comprising a mix of senior practitioners and district judges was held. A number of potential scenarios were developed prior to the focus group being held which were then further refined and developed following the feedback from the focus group. The response of the district judges to these was very positive, in that they commented that they were very “familiar” and reflected similar cases which they had recently encountered. Given the qualitative nature of the interviews we have generally not. The earlier focus groups suggested that there would be a range of attitudes from judges and this was borne out by the interviews, and it seems inappropriate to try and ascribe any numerical 5
significance to a particular response or attitude. We have illustrated the range of responses through direct quotes from the transcripts of the interviews. Structure of the report The report starts in Chapter 2 by providing background contextual material on both the legal process and the incidence of rent arrears. This material gives rise to a number of questions which are explored in this study. Chapter 3 sets out the pattern of decision-making which arises from the quantitative data. A point of comparison is provided by a 1996 study of housing possession cases (Nixon et al, 1996). This also provides context for the exploration of the exercise of discretion in the following Chapters. Chapter 4 examines the issues of consistency and difference in decision-making by judges, both between courts and between individual judges. Chapters 5 and 6 examine respectively the impact that the actions of the claimant landlord and factors relating to the tenant defendant can have on decision-making. The importance of two particular factors, the level of arrears and housing benefit, to decision-making are explored in Chapter 7. Two particular decisions which judges have to make are dealt with in Chapter 8. First those relating to the mandatory possession ground, Ground 8 and second decisions on applications to suspend warrants for possession. Chapter 9 provides conclusions to the study. 6
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: Northern 1 court hears over 1500 ho
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
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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
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understand the proceedings, a great
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What must be emphasised is that whi
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also the most common explanation gi
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anomalous case of West Country cour
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District judges’ knowledge. Some
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Two of the judges interviewed felt
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DJ: I’d be inclining towards the
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how he dealt with the housing benef
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Chapter 8: Particular decisions: gr
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Table 10: Outcomes in Ground 8 case
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Others were, however, prepared to g
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It is perhaps not surprising that,
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the basis of the original possessio
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Chart 13: Impact of family make up
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The advice to the tenant was often
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Chapter 9: Conclusions Where the la
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shows that the vast majority of tho
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important determining factors is th
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Thus it is likely that that even th
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110
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Lawrence J (1995) “Sentencing pro
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give a typology of the characterist
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In analysing cases percentages have
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Appendix 2 - Research instruments 1
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What factors would you ascribe thos
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20. Typically, how would you descri
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with a duty desk representative who
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DCA Research Series No. 6/05 The ex
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