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

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judges spontaneously mentioned that they would consider granting possession on low amounts of arrears, if these were attributable to a small proportion of the rent not covered by housing benefit, and were therefore the tenant’s responsibility. This might persuade them to grant possession because, as DJ U argued, if a low level of arrears: “In fact represents non-payment of the shortfall between housing benefit and rent for a considerable number of weeks, then it may nevertheless be reasonable to make the suspended possession order.” Many district judges seemed to feel strongly about tenants’ failure to pay a small contribution; for example DJ J said: “I think in many ways that’s more reprehensible than not having paid two hundred and fifty pounds over five weeks.” Responses of district judges to housing benefit scenario 3 Scenario 3 A local authority is seeking possession against a tenant, who was granted a tenancy four months ago. The rent is £55 per week. No rent has been paid since the tenant moved in and arrears are £935. The tenant, a single woman attends and tells you that she is unemployed and has submitted a housing benefit claim. She has tried to contact housing benefit, but has not been able to find out what has happened. The housing officer tells you that she (the housing officer) has contacted housing benefit that morning. The housing benefit office state categorically that they have written to the tenant asking for further information, and until that information is received the claim cannot be processed. As already noted, the district judges interviewed had definite views about the problems posed by housing benefit. Many of them volunteered examples of these, and made clear their attitudes towards the tenants, landlords and the housing benefit administration with which they had to deal on a regular basis. The scenario which was then put to them provided a good opportunity of testing out these views against a typical case. The district judges had to adjudicate between the evidence of the unemployed single female tenant that her housing benefit claim had disappeared into the system, and the information from housing benefits relayed to the court by the housing officer, that the tenant had failed to respond to their request for further information without which the claim could not be processed. Only one of the district judges interviewed (DJ G) considered a possession order: “DJ: Four months ago, right, no rent paid. Mmm-hmm. (pause) And this is an outright order that’s being sought, is it? Interviewer: Yes. 83
DJ: I’d be inclining towards the landlord. I might possibly adjourn to establish whether what has been said is right or not. But on the information that you’ve got there, ... there’s no rent paid at all since they moved in, there appear to have been requests for information and contacts with the tenant which have not been responded to. So the reasonableness see-saw is going way against her. She says that she has… tried to contact them but has not been able to find out what has happened. That seems pretty weak to me on the face of it. I know there are many occasions when…there are failures to contact, failures to respond and so and so forth, but that seems extremely weak to me. I would incline there towards an order.” All the other district judges interviewed said that they would adjourn the case, some expressing considerable reluctance at having no other option: “I don’t like doing it…by the time they come back the arrears are much larger than they are now and one is, on the face of it, holding out the promise that nothing very serious is going to happen – unless you spell it out, which I always have to.” (DJ W) The considerations which have been discussed above, about giving the tenant the benefit of the doubt in such circumstances, were again the basis for many of the decisions to adjourn. DJ O said that “the fact that housing benefit have said something categorically doesn’t mean I accept it at all” but nonetheless would grant only a short adjournment of 6 days because of the possibility that the tenant was ‘crying wolf’. Five of the district judges indicated they would adjourn on terms, two giving the standard figure of £2.80 per week and one suggesting that five pounds would be appropriate. The justification for requiring a weekly payment was that “she might as well start and that’ll test the motivation” (DJ K). There was considerable variation amongst the thirteen judges who suggested the length of adjournment they would order. Chart 12: Length of adjournment suggested by district judges where housing benefit raised as an issue (n=13) 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Length of adjournment suggested 1 day 6 days 7-14 days 2-4 weeks 28 days 6 weeks number of district judges 84
Page 1 and 2:
The exercise of judicial discretion
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The Research Unit, Department for C
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Contents Executive summary i Chapte
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Executive summary The research ques
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the shift to housing officers appea
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Conclusions A wide and diverse rang
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on the role of judges under the exi
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Northern 1 court hears over 1500 ho
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significance to a particular respon
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The application may be adjourned; t
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such forms are completed in less th
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In November 2001, the Legal Service
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Levels of arrears Although the reas
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Table 2: Rent levels from ODPM stat
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Table 5: Changes in outcomes of ini
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Table 6: Impact of participation on
Page 35 and 36:
The focus group participants consid
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consideration in this chapter, the
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Neither of the judges seemed to con
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chambers, where the possession list
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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 and 64: District judges differed on how muc
Page 65 and 66: There were three other, more genera
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: Two of the judges interviewed felt
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
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