Single Mum of three was forced to live in a single hotel room for four months whilst her landlord, Sanctuary Housing, drag their feet despite court orders

After reporting a bathroom leak to her landlord, Ms S could not have expected the ceiling to collapse and land on her head. Whilst her landlord attended quickly to disconnect the electricity supply to the room, they then took no action to either stop the leak or make the bathroom safe again for the tenant and her young children. But a worse situation was yet to come.

Ms S was decanted into a Travelodge hotel whilst the repairs were to be done. Despite it only being a standard single room for the four of them, given the lack of lighting in her bathroom and the constant water flowing in, this was a relief. However, the real nightmare had just begun as despite court action taken for an injunction and three court hearings, Ms S and her family lived in the single room for four months before they were able to return to their home!

A few weeks after the leak began, it is hard to imagine Ms S’s facial expression when the contractor told her that the hole in her bathroom ceiling was “safe” – a ceiling that had, a few days prior, collapsed on her head.

“My children are scared to use the bathroom” she said. “They’re constipated because they can’t use the toilet.”

Ms S, who lives in Hackney with her three young children, had complained to Sanctuary Housing about the leak in her home. After the ceiling had collapsed, emergency works or a decant were not deemed necessary by their contractor, despite that the electrics had been disabled in the bathroom.

The extraction fan had also stopped working, leading to damp and mould issues around the shower unit. After there was no movement on works for many weeks, Ms S had no choice but to seek legal advice.

At Pabla & Pabla, we sent the letter of claim to Sanctuary Housing, who almost immediately scheduled a surveyor to visit the property. After this visit, following numerous suggestions from us, the works were upgraded to an emergency, and Ms S and her children were to be decanted.

This was seen as a positive as her home was not fit for her to live in. When she saw that the decant was to be a single room in a Travelodge hotel with had no facilities to cook, she felt that they could manage as presumably the repairs would be done urgently. However, thus was no the case.

“My mental health has suffered greatly,” said Ms S whilst staying in the Travelodge hotel room noting that with no ability to prepare or keep food in the hotel, they were forced to use the small allowance provided to buy all meals from cheap takeaways. “My children have been constipated, constantly sick, had a loss of appetite, and increased acne. We don’t even have anywhere to do our laundry.”

During this time, it was clear repairs were not done in Ms S’s home. Sanctuary Housing did not communicate a schedule of repairs with us at Pabla & Pabla, so Ms S and her children were very much left in the dark. As a result, she was forced to issue court proceedings and make an application for an injunction to seek either the repairs or a reasonable decant property.

To compound matters, in an attempt to improve the decant position, they sought to move her to a different hotel which had a restaurant so this could be used instead of the food allowance. However, following the upheaval of moving her family of four to a different single hotel room, she discovered the restaurant could not be used as it did not provide Halal food. Sanctuary Housing were fully aware of the fact Ms S and her family are practicing Muslims.

There to support her every step of the way, Christian Potter from Pabla & Pabla guided Ms S through the legal process which included several court hearings and many broken promises by Sanctuary Housing. By the time the repairs were completed, Ms S was paid nearly 100% of her rent back by way of compensation which is a very rare figure to obtain.

Unfortunately, Ms S’s case is not an unfamiliar one. Despite it being their responsibility to repair the homes they own and rent out, for Social housing landlords it seems delays occur more often than the work itself. This is even the case in such an extreme example as for Ms S!

If you have complained to your landlord about housing disrepair and they are still dragging their feet, we a Pabla & Pabla can support you get the repairs done.