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

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