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

Others took the view that on occasions, as DJ J explained, housing benefit delays were due
to tenants who:
“prefer to bury their head in the sand [so that] despite two or three chases by housing
benefit, the basic reason why the application hasn’t been processed, it has to be
said, is the tenant’s fault, not the landlord’s.”
However, on the whole, the district judges we interviewed were sceptical about information
provided by housing benefit officers where this was contradicted by the tenant’s evidence in
court. A typical view was that of DJ F:
“I’m afraid that whereas at one time I’d have believed the housing benefit officer, I
tend these days to give the benefit of the doubt to the tenants…I don’t think housing
benefit officers go around deliberately lying, but I think they’re under such pressure of
work that you can’t really rely on what they say these days, quite honestly.”
This scepticism was borne out of experience:
“When a tenant says, ‘I did send my review forms and they must have lost them’, I
now know that that’s more likely to be true than not.” (DJ H)
A further problem for district judges arises where the claimant is the local authority, and their
representative at court gives ‘second-hand’ information obtained from colleagues in the
housing benefit section, about the defendant tenant’s housing benefit claim. Again, many of
the district judges interviewed felt that this type of information could not be relied upon. DJ
Q explained that:
“so often I’ve had cases where…sometimes the tenants actually produce a letter
from housing benefit saying one thing, and the local authority [as landlord] says,
‘well, our information’s completely different’. You know, I’ve actually on occasion
adjourned cases anyway, and directed that somebody from [housing benefit
contractor] comes to court to tell me what actually is happening, because I can’t
make head or tail of it.”
This lack of trust about housing benefit information was in strong contrast to the acceptance
by most judges of other evidence given by housing officers (see Chapter 5, above).
Housing benefit as a factor in determining reasonableness and type of order
Many of the district judges raised the issue of housing benefit when asked about their
‘mental checklist’ of factors to be taken into account in considering reasonableness. The
amount of housing benefit payable, and any shortfall between that amount and the full rent,
appeared on the pro forma record of hearings used by district judges at London and
Northern 1 courts.
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