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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

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. 51
There were three other, more general reasons given for treating social landlord cases differently: there was a balance between entitlement to rent and social landlordism; there was the relationship between the current occupier and others on the waiting list in housing need; and there was the problem of rehousing occupiers. We examine each of these in turn. First, district judges expressed a dichotomy between social landlordism, on the one hand, and the contractual duty to pay rent or the duty to tax payers more generally, on the other hand. This tension was expressed in the following ways: “It’s social housing, it is a contract. It cuts both ways. The tenant has got to realise he’s probably got an easy landlord. He’s got to do something to help.” (DJ P) “I mean at the end of the day, even social landlords, we’re all paying for that as it were. The money doesn’t come from nowhere.” (DJ F) Different elements within this dichotomy might be emphasised at different times. For example, two interviewees drew upon the contractual duty to pay rent when feeding back to the tenant, as part of a tactic to scare the tenant into paying their rent. This became apparent in an answer to scenario 7. Scenario 7 The tenant is making an application to suspend a warrant for possession, made in favour of her housing association landlord. A suspended possession order was made against the tenant six months ago on payment of rent plus £4.50 per week. The tenant is in work. She has only paid intermittently since the order was made, and arrears have risen from £750 at the time of the order to £975 now. You have already granted one suspension of the warrant, at which time the tenant explained that she had had difficulties because she had had to pay out for car repairs in order to still be able to get to work. At this current application there have been no material changes in her circumstances, although she says she is having difficulty making ends meet. In response to this one interviewee said “I would suspend. I would scare her…before I suspended. …‘Why should all the other local authority tenants have to pay rent, increase rents because you can’t be bothered to get your act together, Miss Jones, it’s just not good enough. There’s no reason why I should suspend this, is there? You’ve been warned once.’ At this point they burst into tears. And then I suspend it. It may sound cruel, that’s the way I happen to feel that I can get people to realise...and this is why I would say it, I would write ‘last chance’.” (DJ D) 52
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 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: District judges differed on how muc
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,
Page 109 and 110: the basis of the original possessio
Page 111 and 112: Chart 13: Impact of family make up
Page 113 and 114: The advice to the tenant was often
Page 115 and 116:
Chapter 9: Conclusions Where the la
Page 117 and 118:
shows that the vast majority of tho
Page 119 and 120:
important determining factors is th
Page 121 and 122:
Thus it is likely that that even th
Page 123 and 124:
110
Page 125 and 126:
Lawrence J (1995) “Sentencing pro
Page 127 and 128:
give a typology of the characterist
Page 129 and 130:
In analysing cases percentages have
Page 131 and 132:
Appendix 2 - Research instruments 1
Page 133 and 134:
What factors would you ascribe thos
Page 135 and 136:
20. Typically, how would you descri
Page 137 and 138:
with a duty desk representative who
Page 139:
DCA Research Series No. 6/05 The ex
show all

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?