Michael Chavrimootoo
What Does it Mean for a Tenant to “Appear” and “Be Represented”?
It’s important to note that tenants have the choice as the whether they want to be present (appear) at a court hearing or not. However, when a tenant does not appear at the hearing, it is common practice for a judge to issue an immediate warrant and judgement as requested by the landlord. Some judges will justify this action by claiming that a tenant who is not present is one who does not care or agrees with the landlord. Thus, it seems very important for a tenant to be present at a hearing.
Tenants are not obligated to show up alone. Tenants are entitled to legal representation, i.e. have an attorney represent them, at any point throughout the process. Tenants that are represented by an attorney do not have to appear to court. The attorney’s presence counts as an appearance. However, very few tenants are actually represented.
Using our sample from Rochester’s Landlord-Tenant Court cases in 2017, we have made an analysis of how appearance and representation can affect the outcome of a case, the judgement amount, and the length by the which the warrant is stayed. In the subsequent sections, we say a tenant “wins” if the case is “dismissed” or “withdrawn”. The tenant is said to “not win” if a warrant or judgment is issued. Furthermore, judgement amounts are only considered if they are greater than zero. Finally, judgement amounts above $5,000 and stayed-to lengths above 60 days were considered outliers and are excluded.
How Does Appearance Affect Outcomes?
The first case we want to consider is the proportions of tenant wins based on whether they were present or not. The following chart compares these proportions. The first column is the win proportion when tenants are not present, and the second column is the win proportion when tenants are present.
Comparing the Tenant Win Rate Based on Tenant Presence
From the chart, we can see that whether a tenant appears or not, there is an almost equal chance of losing the case.
Having seen the high likeliness of losing a case, we now look at how the judgement amount varies based on whether a tenant was present or not.
Comparing Judgement Amounts by Tenant Appearance
From the above chart we can see that tenants that are not present tend to pay relatively smaller amounts, while tenants that are present typically pay a larger sum. However, this could be explained by the fact that tenants who owe a small amount do not see the urgency in paying that amount.
Tenants that lose their cases also typically receive a warrant. The chart below compares the number of days by which a warrant is typically stayed to in our sample (including stayed warrants which have a length of zero) based on tenant appearance.
Comparing Stayed-to Length by Tenant Appearance (Including Immediate Warrants)
As we can see, for tenants that were present, almost all warrants were immediate, whereas in the case of tenants that were present, there is an almost uniform spread.
The above chart has a high proportion of immediate warrants. So what happens if we ignore those and consider only warrants that have been stayed to a date further in the future? Consider the following chart.
Comparing Stayed-to Length by Tenant Appearance (Excluding Immediate Warrants)
We see that for tenants that were not present, there is an erratic pattern, which is expected. Most tenants that are not present are served immediate warrants, so these must be special or exceptional cases. In the case of tenants that were present, There is a negative relationship between the proportion of cases and the number of stayed days. The majority of cases are stayed to a rather short period (under 20 days).
The above charts beg the question: how frequent are immediate warrants when a tenant appears? The following chart does the comparison of the number of immediate warrants based on tenant appearance.
Are Warrants Immediate if a Tenant Appears?
We can clearly see that if a tenant does not appear, they are highly likely to be served an immediate warrant whereas if a tenant appears, they are highly likely to see their warrant stayed to a future date.
It seems that from the data, the biggest advantage to being present is not to receive an immediate warrant.
How Does Representation Affect Outcomes?
Having compared the effects of tenant appearance and reviewed how it affects win rates, judgement amounts, and stayed warrant lengths, we now proceed to do the same analysis, but by comparing based on tenant representation.
The chart below compares tenant win/loss rates based on their legal representation.
Comparing the Tenant Win Rate Based on Tenant Representation
From the chart, we can see that tenants who are represented are almost 3 times more likely to win their case. However, the loss rate is still consequent, above 75% of cases are lost.
That is still a significant loss rate, so we examine what that entails. Let us first take a look at how representation can affect the judgment amount issued by a judge.
Comparing Judgement Amounts by Tenant Representation
There seems to be no distinct pattern differentiating the typical judgment amount whether a tenant is represented or not.
Next, we compare the length the warrants are stayed to (including immediate warrants that have a length of zero) based on tenant representation.
Comparing Stayed-To Days By Tenant Representation (Including Immediate Warrants)
From the chart, there seems to be no difference in a warrant’s stayed-to length based on tenant representation, except around 0, where there seems to be a lower number for represented tenants. It would seem legal representation tends to buy some tenants some time.
The above chart seems to have a significance around zero days, so we try to look at the same data, but ignoring immediate warrants this time.
Comparing Stayed-To Days By Tenant Representation (Excluding Immediate Warrants)
Once we ignore immediate warrants, there seems to be no significant additional difference to have representation.
It seems legal representation only matters in cases where a warrant might be immediate.