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

them where they did not appear. They were in a position to meet with the tenant at court
and make agreements in the doorway:
“There’s more opportunity for the housing officer to talk to the tenant at court and,
you know, get to the bottom of what’s going on, and try and explain things” (DJ L)
Good housing officers cared about their tenants and might “veer on the side of being as fair
to the tenants as possible” (DJ R).
Local authority claimant representatives were generally regarded positively. There was said
to be more variation as regards housing associations:
“A bit like that page in your diary which, for French wine, 0 was a bad year and 10
was excellent” (DJ P)
Poor representatives had ‘scripts’, or had to go through the file during the actual hearing,
and were unable to answer questions about their tenants. Some judges had strident
approaches when dealing with such representatives, for example refusing them rights of
audience or adjourning their claims. Poor representatives could also affect decision-making:
“Sometimes they really drive you beyond the pale…it’ll actually work in the tenant’s
favour…I ought to be being fair to both [sides, but] you’re only human.” (DJ O)
This difference between local authority and housing association representatives suggests
that the outcome of cases might be affected by the type of claimant. We examined our
quantitative data to explore the evidence for such a relationship, which might explain some
of the differences between the four sample courts discussed in the previous chapter. For
example, in London court, the recorded cases were evenly split between local authority and
housing association claimants. In West Country court, 100% of the cases were brought by
housing associations, probably mainly by the landlord to whom the former local authority
stock had been transferred, which therefore operated very much as a local authority. The
cases recorded at Northern 1 court were all brought by the local authority, while at Northern
2 court the local authority was responsible for 88% of the claims.
Although the actual numbers are small, and the results should therefore be read with some
caution, the following differences were noted:
Where local authorities requested an outright possession order at the first hearing
(n=42), that order was made in 91% of cases; the equivalent for housing associations
(n=36) was 56%.
Where local authorities requested a suspended possession order at the first hearing
(n=105), that order was made in 72% of cases; the equivalent for housing
associations (n=56) was 57%.
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