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

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Chapter 3: The pattern of cases Introduction In this section we describe the general pattern of cases and outcomes in court, drawing primarily on the data from the recorded cases. To provide some context to this we will compare the position with that in a study of county court cases decided in 1995 (Nixon et al, 1996). These comparisons must be approached with care, as in both cases only a small proportion of the total number of cases heard in England during the relevant time frame was sampled and the courts sampled in the two studies are not the same. In particular the majority of cases in the current study came from London, which may have particular effects, as levels of participation and arrears are higher there. Nonetheless we are of the view that they do indicate some relevant changes over time. Levels of arrears As indicated in Chapter 2 there is some evidence (Pawson et al, 2005) that landlords have been starting possession proceedings at an earlier stage, to ensure that arrears do not get out of hand before a case comes to court. The level of arrears and average debts amongst tenants is set out in Table 2. The average level of rent amongst the recorded cases was higher than the national average, possibly because of the preponderance of cases in London, where rents are higher. It is noticeable that while both local authorities and housing associations issue proceedings where arrears are at a similar level (measured by weeks in arrears), for local authorities this had risen by the time cases came to court, while for housing associations the average level of arrears fell between summons and hearing. There is some evidence that landlords have been getting their cases to court earlier, in that the average number of weeks in arrears at the date of the first hearing has come down from 16 in the 1996 study to 14 in this. It is noticeable that the reduction in this average has primarily been driven by housing associations bringing their cases to court earlier. 15
Table 2: Rent levels from ODPM statistics and current study, with average arrears at first hearings (n=540) Type of English Study Average Average Average Range of landlord average sample arrears no. of no. of arrears at weekly average weeks in weeks in hearing rent* weekly arrears at arrears at rent summons hearing Local £50.96 £57.05 £872.14 14.88 15.89 £0.00 - authority (2003) £10,020.43 Housing £54.76 £74.08 £993.77 14.48 12.57 £0.00 - Association (2004) £7,484.08 All landlords £66.14 £947 14.67 14.14 £0.00 - £10,020.43 *Source: ODPM Housing Statistics Live Tables available at: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_control/documents/contentservertemplate/odpm_index. hcst?n=1537&l=1 The 1996 study found that the level of arrears varied considerably between courts at the time of the first hearing (Nixon, et al, 1996), ranging from an average of 5 – 18 weeks of arrears. There is less variation between the courts in the current study (see Table 3). As indicated below, the level of arrears is an influential factor in district judges’ decisions, but a number of factors may be influencing the level of arrears at the hearing, not just the level of arrears at which the landlord decides to take action. These include the speed at which the court is able to list cases and whether the landlord is able to recover any payments from the tenants between summons and hearing date. As indicated in Table 2, it appears that housing associations were successful in reducing arrears between summons and hearing. Table 3: Variations in the average levels of arrears at first hearings, by court Court £ average arrears Average weeks outstanding at 1 st hearing London £1098 14 West Country £857 12 Northern 1 £747 14 Northern 2 £680 13 Attendance In this section we describe the levels of attendance generally, before turning to an analysis of the impact of attendance. The reasons for the impact of attendance by the tenant are further explored in Chapter 6. One of the striking features of the 1996 study (Nixon et al, 1996) and indeed an earlier study in 1986 (SAUS, 1986) was the failure of most tenants to attend court. A small number of the district judges interviewed for the current study felt that tenants were attending in greater numbers than had previously been the case, and felt that the courts in conjunction with the work of those staffing duty desks were encouraging more to attend. 16
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 and 18: Northern 1 court hears over 1500 ho
Page 19 and 20: significance to a particular respon
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: Levels of arrears Although the reas
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
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
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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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