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

how he dealt with the housing benefit issue, replied “I’m adjourning, adjourning, adjourning”,
while DJ F explained that he tended:
“to make an order and re-list it after so many weeks, so that it comes back. So there
is an actual order of some kind, and everybody knows where they are. But that’s just
phraseology, really.”
Some district judges pointed out that claimants also are now “much more realistic about the
housing benefit situation than they used to be” and will accept that adjournments are
frequently necessary, and in many cases apply for adjournments themselves.
Most of the district judges interviewed were well informed about housing benefit, both about
the details of the system as it should work, and about the local conditions under which it is
administered. All of them have a certain amount of sympathy and patience with defendants,
but are also aware that claimants are losing rental income while housing benefit problems
are sorted out, and while possession cases are adjourned. Most of those interviewed judges
have become cynical about the capability of housing benefit administration to deal with
claims, through their experience of hearing cases involving lost application forms and other
information, incorrect assessment of benefit, and administrative delay.
Many of the district judges we interviewed regularly gave the benefit of their experience in
the form of advice to defendants who are having difficulties with their claims for housing
benefit. The judges also make use of expert advisers, either present at court as duty desk
advisers or working in the community, who they hope will be able to speed up the system.
One practical suggestion, from DJ L, was that each court should have a housing benefit
officer attending possession days with the relevant files, and access to the benefits
computer, who would be able to check the progress of defendants’ claims before each case
was heard.
Although these district judges represent a range of attitudes towards claimants (see chapter
5) and towards tenants (see chapter 6), their responses to a ‘real-life’ scenario of a
possession case based on arrears of rent, which the tenant claimed was due to housing
benefit problems, were remarkably consistent in that only one even considered granting an
order rather than adjourning the case. However, thirteen of the interviewees suggested the
period of adjournment, and this ranged from one day to six weeks. From the analysis of the
database of recorded cases across all four courts, the vast majority of those where housing
benefit was raised as an issue, resulted in an adjournment. There is little scope for district
judges to exercise their discretion on reasonableness in such cases. Indeed their role is
limited to reassuring (or warning) tenants to progress their benefit claim, and to ensuring that
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