The Case

Housing Local authority houses. Court of Appeal, Civil Division: The proposition that, save in quite exceptional cases, applications to fix a date for possession following the making and breach of a postponed possession order under the should be dealt with summarily, presupposed an established breach; whereas the court had an obligation to consider whether or not it was right to make an order and to examine the circumstances. In most cases, the obligation to discharge the obligation to examine the circumstances would lead to summary judgment where no triable answer had been advanced. What would not suffice to procure a hearing was an unsupported assertion that the tenant had an answer; nor would a bare denial amount to an answer. Save in exceptional circumstances, the court would expect details since a tenant who had already, by definition, breached the terms of the tenancy agreement had to have a cogent answer once there was prima facie evidence of repetition