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

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observation data generally supports the conclusion that this relationship affects the outcome of cases. Trust and Outcomes If one posits that high levels of trust exist between claimants and district judges, which affect the outcomes of cases, then one might anticipate that there would be a relationship between the requests made by claimants and the actual decision. We drew on our quantitative data to examine whether this relationship had an impact on the outcome of the decision by considering how often district judges granted the order requested (we were able to record this data in 502 cases). Chart 7 below demonstrates that there is an apparent relationship between the request and the outcome on first hearing of the case (which might have been anticipated) but that this is by no means uniform. What can be said from our sample is that where landlords in our sample requested an adjournment, this was almost always granted (in 98% of requests). This is not particularly surprising as it would be unusual for a judge to grant an order for possession where the claimant has only requested an adjournment. The ‘other’ category reflects those cases where, for example, the claimant requests that the case be withdrawn or does not attend the court. Requests for a suspended possession order or outright possession were more likely to be granted than not (67% and 76% respectively), but there is greater distribution of outcomes than with requests for adjournment. Some caution should be exercised when considering this data, however, as other factors may be at play for which we could not control. For example, it may be the case that landlords only request outright possession orders in the most hopeless of cases (from the tenant’s point of view) such as abandonment; or request suspended orders where the arrears are high and not related to housing benefit. Nevertheless, the data does suggest that the request does have some bearing on the outcome. 43
Chart 7: Orders granted by requests by landlord (n=502) Order Granted 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Outright n=82 Suspended n=162 Adjourned n=216 other n=42 Order Requested by Claimant Note: an outright order was granted where the request was for a suspended possession order in three cases. These were all granted by the same DJ in Northern 2. The responses of interviewees in our sample to the scenarios also bear this out, as the scenarios were designed in part to elicit whether there would be any difference in the outcome where the claimant requested a particular order. There is a suggestion from the responses to these scenarios that some interviewees were more likely to grant an outright order when it was requested. Scenario 6, for example, was initially framed on the basis that the claimant was requesting a suspended possession order. Scenario 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. 44 Other Adjourned Suspended Outright
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 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: Chapter 5: Judges and landlords Int
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
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,
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the basis of the original possessio
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Chart 13: Impact of family make up
Page 113 and 114:
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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