Sanctuary Housing Association (202430579)

Decision
Case ID	202430579
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Sanctuary Housing Association
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	28 November 2025

Background

1. The resident lived in the property, a flat in a block owned by the landlord (the block) between April 2022 and October 2024. She first reported an insect infestation at the property in August 2023 and continued to do so until she left.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
   1. Reports of insect infestations.
   2. Requests to be rehoused.
   3. Complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of insect infestations.
4. The landlord has provided reasonable redress for its handling of the complaint.
5. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests to be rehoused.

We have therefore not made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Reports of insect infestations

6. The resident repeatedly reported insect infestations in 2023 and 2024. The landlord failed to respond appropriately or in line with its policy but its offer of £918 in recognition of its failures. However, it failed to resolve the pest infestation issue.

 

Complaint

7. The landlord’s offer of £400 in recognition of its delays in complaint handling was, in our view, appropriate in the circumstances.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
30 March 2022	The resident moved into the property.
2 August 2023 to 2 December 2024	The resident reported cockroach and bedbug infestations on numerous occasions.
12 September 2023	The resident’s mother complains on her behalf.
19 September 2023	The landlord acknowledged the complaint.
25 September 2023	The resident applied to be moved due to the pest infestations.
27 September 2023	The landlord wrote to the resident saying it would provide a complaint response by 20 October 2023.
28 October 2023	The resident requested a complaint response.
27 November 2023	The landlord informed the resident it had approved her request to apply for new properties and placed her in Band C of its allocations scheme.
11 July 2024	The landlord provided a stage 1 complaint response. It said, “I have not upheld your complaint on the following grounds: – We have treated and will continue to treat any infestations as and when they arise.”
24 September 2024	The resident told the landlord she had just seen the stage 1 response and asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2.
31 October 2024	The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response. It noted that the resident was dissatisfied with the stage 1 response and that she believed the landlord should have told her about pest issues at the block before she moved in. It said that she wanted:  To relocate to a more suitable property.  Compensation for furniture she had had to dispose of.  For the pest issues to be resolved. It said: There was no infestation in the property before she moved in. However, as it was in the block, this could happen at any time. Each time the resident reported an infestation it sent a contractor who attended and addressed the issue.  A manager had explained the landlord’s plan to treat the entire block for pests to the resident. She had said she wanted to move. She is on the transfer list. The resident had asked for reimbursement for damaged furniture. It said it could not agree to this without evidence. It accepted it had allowed a delay in its complaint handling. It offered the resident £1,318 in compensation comprising: £400 for time, trouble and inconvenience caused by the delays in treating the communal areas at the block. £350 for the delay in responding to the complaint at stage 1. £50 for delay in responding to the complaint at stage 2. £508 “loss of enjoyment” payment.
Referral to the Ombudsman	On 10 November 2024, the resident asked us to investigate. She said the landlord had not told her about the pest infestation of the block before she moved in. Her children had suffered numerous bites. She was aware that the infestation had been going on for 7 years at least. She said she would like the landlord to move her to alternative accommodation.
14 November 2024	The resident told the landlord that she had moved out of the property as, in her view, the property was “uninhabitable”.
2 December 2024	The resident accepted an offer of £1,000 in recognition of her furniture and other belongings which had been lost due to pest infestations.
3 January 2025	The resident’s tenancy ended.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint	Reports of insect infestations
Finding	Maladministration

8. The resident moved into the property with her young children in March 2022. She made numerous reports of infestations of both cockroaches and bedbugs from August 2023 onwards saying that her children were being bitten by bedbugs on a daily basis and that she believed this was impacting their health.
9. She complained in September 2023. She said that, since moving in, she had become aware that the block had been infested with cockroaches for at least 7 years. She said that the landlord should have told her of this. She added that her children were regularly bitten and that she had spent a lot of money doing up the property. She said she would never have moved in had she known of the infestation problems.
10. The landlord’s pest control procedures manual (bedbugs) says, in the block or large commercial property section that, “Once bedbugs are introduced they can quickly spread throughout the building. If only one room is left untreated, this can act as a reservoir for the re-infestation of the whole of the building.” The manual adds that contractors “must consider the property(the building)as a whole when making any assessment”.
11. It is clear that the landlord’s contractors did not treat the building as a whole when making their assessments. An internal email of the landlord of 17 October 2023 stated that the block, “suffers from scheme wide infestation…. Whilst we treat this, the problem will never go away.” It therefore treated each flat individually as problems arose.
12. The landlord’s bedbug policy also says that the treatment of infestations should include heat treatments. The resident states that there were no treatments at the property and the records show that the responses were often delayed which was inappropriate.
13. The landlord now accepts that it should have treated the entire block earlier. In an email to the resident of 26 November 2024, it said, “we have already acknowledged there was a delay in treating the communal areas which led to the situation worsening in your individual property that you are responsible for.”.
14. The resident complained that the landlord did not tell her of the problems at the block before she moved in. In its stage 2 response of 31 October 2024, it said, “the property was free from any type of infestation when it was let. However, it went on to say, “With this being a multi storey block, infestations can arise at any moment and when they do, we appoint the relevant contractor to carry out the necessary treatment”. This shows that the landlord drew a distinction between the property, the individual unit inhabited by the resident, which was free from infestation, and the block as a whole, which was not. The drawing of this distinction was not in line with its policy.
15. We cannot say that the landlord should have told the resident that there were bedbugs and cockroaches present in the block when she took on her tenancy. However, we can say that its failure to give the issue sufficient priority was caused by its failure to apply its policy for blocks and large commercial properties.
16. It is also clear that the resident suffered considerable distress and inconvenience over a lengthy period while the landlord took inadequate measures to protect her and her family. If the landlord had not taken some steps to mitigate the suffering she went through, we would have made a finding of severe maladministration. Because it did send out contractors on multiple occasions, we have not done so.
17. However, the landlord did accept at stage 2 that it had not provided an appropriate service to the resident and awarded her £918 in compensation for failures connected to the management of insect infestations. This, according to our guidance on remedies, was in the correct range to remedy this failure. It has also recognised that its failure to treat the block as a whole was inappropriate and has now begun doing so.
18. However, the landlord did not resolve the resident’s concerns and, as a result, she moved out of the property at the end of 2024. For that reason, even though the landlord has offered appropriate compensation, apologised and taken steps to purge the block of pests, we have still found it responsible for maladministration. This is because it did not resolve the infestation issue and so did not satisfactorily resolve her concerns. However, we have made no orders in relation to this finding.
19. The resident asked the landlord to reimburse her for the costs of replacing furniture that she would not be able to take to a new property because of the risk of transporting bedbugs. The landlord offered her £1000 in December 2024 which she accepted. As the resident has accepted the offer, in our view, that matter is resolved.

Complaint	The resident’s requests to be rehoused.
Finding	No maladministration

20. The landlord’s Voids, Allocations and Lettings Procedure states that it will divide those eligible to be rehoused into 3 “bands”, A, B and C. A is given the highest priority and C the lowest. It says that Band A will include “exceptional” cases where “the inability to move will inevitably lead to significant and/or imminent harm”. Band C includes those who live in accommodation which is “not suited to an applicant’s needs or is unsatisfactory”.
21. The resident asked to be rehoused because of the insect infestations which were affecting her children in August 2023. The landlord responded on 27 November 2023 and said that she had been accepted onto its waiting list and placed in Band C. It said it would contact her again as soon as a property became available. This was a reasonable decision in the circumstances as her case could be seen as fitting into Band C.
22. The landlord’s letter stated that the resident could ask for her case to be reviewed if she felt her application had not been properly considered. We have seen no evidence that the resident did so.
23. On 18 November 2024, the landlord decided to upgrade the resident’s banding to Band A because of the ongoing pest control issues at the property and the block. The resident did not ask for this decision. It was one taken by the landlord because of the resident’s concerns. This was an example of good practice. There was therefore no maladministration in this part of the complaint.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Reasonable redress

24. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. The landlord’s published complaints policy complies with the terms of the Code in respect of timescales which says that landlords should provide a stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days of a complaint. It must provide a stage 2 response within working 20 days of a request for a stage 2 review. It can ask for a maximum of 20 extra working days to deal with complex complaints which require further investigation.
25. The resident’s mother complained on her behalf on 12 September 2023. The landlord contacted the resident on 15 September 2023 and confirmed that she wanted to complain. It logged the complaint on 16 September 2023. It issued a complaint acknowledgement on 19 September 2023. Up to this point, this was an appropriate response and in line with its policy.
26. The landlord wrote to the resident on 27 September 2023. It set out the elements of the complaint and assured her that it would provide a complaint response soon and apologised for the delay in doing so. It did not, then, provide a complaint response until 11 July 2024, nearly 10 months later. This was well outside its policy timeframe and was an inexcusable delay.
27. The stage 1 response did not address the resident’s concerns as it should have done. It stated that the landlord had always responded to her reports of insect infestations which seems to have been substantially true, though these responses were sometimes delayed. However, it did not address her claim that it should have told her that the block was infested before she moved in. It said merely that this was not something it would have told her. Its response was not in line with requirements of the Code.
28. The landlord did apologise for the late stage 1 complaint response, but it offered no compensation which it should have done given the extreme delay in responding. The landlord rectified this error in its stage 2 response.
29. The landlord emailed the resident the stage 1 response on 11 July 2024, but she did not see it in her inbox until 27 September 2024. She then immediately asked the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage 2. We have seen no evidence that it acknowledged this request, as it should have done, which was a failing. It provided its stage 2 response on 31 October 2024, 24 working days after the escalation request.
30. In this response, the landlord apologised for the late stage 1 complaint response and offered the resident £350 for the delay. This was sufficient, in our view, to compensate her for the impact of this failure. This was several days outside the landlord’s policy commitment. It also offered her £50 compensation for the delay at stage 2 which was, again, sufficient to compensate her for the failure. We have therefore made a finding that the landlord has provided reasonable redress for its complaint handling failures.

Learning

31. The landlord’s staff did not appear to be aware of the provisions for the management of pests in its own infestation manual. It should consider, if it has not already done so, ensuring that all relevant staff understand the significance of this guidance.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

32. The records provided by the landlord about pest control measures taken at the property contain no consideration of wider measures taken to tackle the block more generally.

Communication

33. Overall, the landlord’s communication with the resident was polite and respectful though there was a lengthy delay of 10 months in dealing with her complaint.