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

per week. There’s not a lot else anyone can do on those and if you’ve got a long list
and one or two people need to get away, I’m not adverse to that happening.” (DJ S)
Hierarchies of Trust
Our interview data suggests that district judges operate informal hierarchies of trust which
was again linked to the confidence that was placed in claimants. Some claimant
representatives were well-trusted and the possessions process may operate smoothly as a
result. At the other end, however, some representatives were mistrusted, generally because
they requested extreme orders. So, for example, DJ H referred to a “cry wolf scenario”
where claimants requested certain orders too frequently; and DJ P made clear that, after
dealing with an ‘unreasonable’ representative:
“I can’t say her card is marked, but I’d look carefully at anything she did in the future.
I thought it particularly unsympathetic”.
These hierarchies of trust can impact on how closely a district judge might consider
agreements between the claimant and defendant:
“...if you were going to suspend an order, and they ask for suspension on £5 a week
in addition to the current rent,…, with some landlords I know that they will have good
reason for pitching it at that. For others I might enquire further into the circumstances
of the tenant.” (DJ N)
Social nature of landlords
Although we did not ask explicitly whether the nature of the landlord impacted on the
decision in rent possession cases, there is evidence from our interviews that this does have
an impact in different ways and for different reasons. Certainly, social landlord cases are
treated differently from private landlords. Various reasons were given for this – for example,
social landlords should lean in favour of the tenant, should not bring proceedings where
housing benefit was at issue, and should not use Ground 8. For some of our interviewees
there was a clear link between the trust they placed in the landlord and the social nature of
that landlord.
Most interviewees tended to regard housing associations as social landlords, although there
was some hesitation and some doubt expressed as to whether this was correct. Some
interviewees did distinguish housing associations from councils on this point. It was said, for
example, that their rents may be higher or they may be more willing to take possession
proceedings at an earlier juncture because they were more commercially oriented (“they
behave like its their money”: DJ L). However, as discussed in Chapter 8, below, the use of
Ground 8 by housing associations raised this notion of social landlord squarely.
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