It is a February morning at Doncaster county court and a retired man is being led out of a courtroom wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. He has sobbed his way through much of a near 15-minute hearing, telling a district judge how his efforts at cardiopulmonary resuscitation failed to save the life of his ageing mother just four weeks earlier.
That personal tragedy compounded efforts to solve mounting financial problems that had worsened since his retirement – including more than £60,000 in mortgage and interest arrears on his £300,000 home, for which Leeds building society is pursuing him.
The judge displayed some sympathy – ruling that the lender’s “interest can be protected in this case” before adjourning for 28 days to allow the defendant to raise about £48,000 via a bridging loan guaranteed against his share of his late mother’s £250,000 estate. The man – who was once a solicitor – thanks the judge and leaves, looking totally broken.
Scenes like these are unfolding in debt courts up and down the country. Here, in the heart of the cost of living crisis, the volume of cases is rising day by day.
“These cases are picking up. It is so sad,” one district judge, who did not want to be named, tells the Guardian. “People’s finances are dire. How anyone survives in this day and age – it makes me want to cry. What we wrestle with as judges, it’s difficult.”
This week, the Guardian visited courtrooms in Blackpool, Doncaster and Caernarfon in north Wales, and found anecdotal evidence of a surge in cases in all three places.
Each micro-story is adding up to a significant macro-issue.
The homeless charity Shelter warned at the end of last year that one in 12 private renters in England – equivalent to 941,000 people – are under threat of eviction. That warning appears to be confirmed by trends in the official data.
The Ministry of Justice’s latest mortgage and landlord repossession statistics, which cover October to December 2022, show that claims by private landlords to repossess their properties for rental arrears were up by 59%, while accelerated procedures – so-called no-fault evictions – surged by 193% in the same quarter in 2021.
The data shows both forms of possession claims now above the levels they were before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic – when evictions were halted – with judges bracing themselves for more and more hearings as the cost of living crisis bites harder.
“We are seeing a lot of repossessions with rentals,” says another judge. “At the moment we are seeing less with mortgages, but I expect to see them. People are struggling.”
Back in Doncaster, the cases continue to roll in – a conveyor belt of tales of seemingly mundane financial woe culminating in life-changing moments.
In just one morning, one judge hears nine cases involving people under the almost immediate threat of losing their homes. The longest hearing takes just 19 minutes.
It involves the eviction of a middle-aged woman receiving housing benefit that does not cover all of her rent. The court is told how she has been out of work for a “significant period of time” due to a string of illnesses including dermatomyositis, suspected cervical cancer and mental health issues – as well as how her case has previously been adjourned twice because she had received no legal advice.
Attempt three was not much different; partly because the defendant had failed to make enough effort to engage a local law firm (“I’ve never been in this situation, it’s quite confusing,” she tells the judge); but partly due to a nationwide dearth of legal aid lawyers able to address these cases.
“This is your last, last chance,” the judge instructs the defendant sternly. “You’re going to have to get on the phone and chase.”
The tenant has 21 days to file a defence.
In another case, a young professional couple are seeking a remedy after renting out a property for £625 a month to a tenant they served notice on five months after he had moved in.
The court is told how he owes them £2,550 in rental arrears as the pair show the judge a series of documents to demonstrate their futile attempts to contact their tenant. They appear to be entirely reasonable – telling the judge that they “just want their house back”. The tenant is not there to give his side of the story.
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In his absence, the judge rules that the landlords can take back their property in 14 days. The tenant is also ordered to pay a further £355 to cover the costs of their application.
Cases where the respondents do not show up in person are disturbingly common.
One morning at Blackpool, a judge works through a list of attachment of earnings claims – cases where efforts to resolve debts have been so unsuccessful that deductions are automatically taken from debtors’ pay cheques.
Not a single party to five of these cases appears that morning. The judge deals with the whole lot on paper, including issuing summonses for some people to appear before the court. Failure to do so can result in two weeks in prison.
It is a wholly depressing scene just metres from Blackpool’s central pier, all housed in a worn out building that seems to match many of the cases that appear there. Its crumbling 1960s concrete walls and sparse government decor add to the sense that everything there has seen better days.
“This is the worst court building in the country,” a judge there quips. “The technical term is a shithole.”
The court at Caernarfon is different – all new and clean. The cases are the same, though.
Here a landlord is being given his final chance to pay what he owes on a rental property. The mortgage company first pursued him through the courts in 2013, but the action was suspended when he paid what he owed.
A further 16 warnings from the lender about repossessing his property have been made since, and the latest means he is back in court to deal with about £11,000 of arrears on an interest-only mortgage relating to a property that might be worth £130,000.
The judge rules he must pay £5,000 within 14 days, plus an extra £127.60 a month on top of his usual contractual repayments.
Unlike most, he leaves the court looking reasonably pleased, saying he plans to renovate the property and sell it for a profit.
