Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector

6.3 Duty advisor interviews:
key findings
Telephone interviews were conducted with four
solicitors, two mapping on to the HA A-C, and two
broadly mapping on to at least some of the courts
used by HA D-F . One in each area was responsible
for the management of duty advice schemes
at their local court . These interviews, although
small in number, offered a counterbalance to the
perspectives and practices, which formed the case
study work in the previous section .
Certain key themes emerged from these interviews
which might form the subject of further work
but which, for our purposes, offer a third party
appreciation of HA court-based practices . The
nature of duty advice work is such that advisors
meet clients, take instructions, and represent them
in court in a short timespan . Instructions can only be
taken when tenants attend court and they may not
do so . Instructions taken “on the hoof”, so to speak,
require the client to have brought the relevant
documents with them, which is not always the case,
and advising in those situations is obviously difficult .
After taking instructions, the usual process is for
the duty advisor to seek to negotiate with the HA
housing officer before entering court .
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The two advisors, which cover the court used most
prominently by HA A-C noted an increase in the
use of Ground 8 by HAs in that court . Amongst
the clients who attend court and instruct them on
an average duty day, one said that it is pleaded in
around 75% of claims and actually used in 20-25%
of hearings; the other said that, in one possession
day in June, it was used in four cases in which
this person acted . This represented a significant
increase in its use, which was said to have begun in
or around 2005 (before which it would be used in
perhaps one case per year) .
It was not just that increase in use, though; it was
also the manner in which it was used, with some HA
officers being more unwilling to negotiate terms and
more aggressive in pursuing a possession order:
“Sometimes when I look at the court list, I cringe
because the tenant has little chance of negotiating
with HAs and you do know the officers who turn up
and won’t listen . Nothing will change at that point
and they won’t consider reasons that we consider
to be reasonable .”
The DJs in this court were said to be mostly
knowledgeable and sympathetic, albeit there was a
lack of consistency between them (and this might
alter when a Deputy was sitting) . Their approach to