Repairs and disrepair — Sanctuary

Before thinking about any legal claim, complain to Sanctuary. It is free, you do not need anyone to do it for you, and it is often the fastest way to get repairs moving. It also creates a written record of what you reported and when — which is exactly the evidence a claim relies on later, if you need one.

How Sanctuary's process works. Report a repair through your online MySanctuary account or Sanctuary's Customer Service Centre, and make a complaint through its two-stage process at sanctuary.co.uk/contact-us/complaints.^[7] Sanctuary says it will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and aim to respond at Stage 1 within 10 working days. If you are unhappy with the answer, you can ask to escalate to Stage 2, which it aims to answer within 20 working days. Its process is aligned to the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code, and its responses include the Ombudsman's contact details.^[7]

What tenants say about complaining. In Sanctuary's own tenant survey for 2025-26, 30.4% of tenants said they were satisfied with how it handles complaints.^[8] So keep your own record as you go — dates, reference numbers, and what you were told.

If the complaint doesn't fix it: the Housing Ombudsman. If you have been through Sanctuary's two stages and are still unhappy — or your complaint is not progressing — you can take it to the Housing Ombudsman. The service is free and independent, and you can contact it for advice at any point, not just at the end. The Ombudsman can do more than look into your complaint: it can order your landlord to carry out repairs, apologise, and pay you compensation. You do not need a claims company or a solicitor, and nobody takes a fee or a share of anything it awards you.

If you want free, independent advice at any point, Shelter and Citizens Advice both offer housing advice, and a local law centre can tell you whether you qualify for legal aid — for disrepair, legal aid can be available to make a landlord deal with a serious risk to health or safety, though not normally for a compensation-only claim.

Complaining and claiming are not either/or. Complaining first is the right move in almost every case — and if the repairs still don't happen, the record you have built makes any claim stronger, not weaker.

"Disrepair" means problems with your home that your landlord is legally responsible for fixing but hasn't. Common examples include:

• damp and mould
• leaks — from the roof, pipes, or a flat above
• broken heating or no hot water
• rotten or draughty windows and doors
• cracked walls, unsafe ceilings or other structural problems
• faulty electrics.

You may have a claim against Sanctuary if all of these apply:

1. Sanctuary is your landlord. Check your tenancy agreement — the landlord named on it is what counts.
2. Sanctuary knew about the problem. Usually that means you reported it — so your texts, emails, photos, and repair reference numbers are gold. Keep them.
3. It failed to fix the problem in a reasonable time. What is "reasonable" depends on the problem — Sanctuary's own published timescales, in the FAQs below, are a good guide.
4. You were affected — for example, your health suffered, your belongings were damaged, or part of your home became unusable.

If you are a shared owner or a leaseholder in a Sanctuary building, you have rights too, though the route is a little different — see the shared-owner question in the FAQs below.

A housing disrepair claim can deal with two things: getting the repairs done, and recognising what living with the problem has cost you. Depending on your situation, a claim may cover:

• the repairs themselves — a court can order Sanctuary to carry out the work;
• inconvenience and distress — compensation may be sought for the disruption of living with the problem;
• effects on health — for example where damp and mould have made a breathing condition worse;
• damaged belongings — clothes, furniture, carpets or electronics ruined by damp, mould or leaks;
• loss of use of part of your home — such as a bedroom or bathroom you could not safely use.

Every case is different, and no honest adviser can value a claim before seeing the evidence — a proper assessment of the disrepair and its effects is what shows whether a claim looks strong.

Step 1 — tell us what's happened. You answer some straightforward questions: what the problem is, when you reported it, what Sanctuary did (or didn't do), and how it has affected your household. Photos, repair references and complaint responses all help.

Step 2 — get your free report. We assess your answers against the legal tests on this page and give you a clear written view of whether you may have a claim and how strong it looks. Your first conversation with us is always free.

Step 3 — if your case is strong. If it needs a solicitor, we connect you with an independent, regulated law firm — and we will be upfront about that before you commit to anything. They take it from there: advising you, notifying Sanctuary formally, and usually arranging an independent inspection of your home. Most disrepair cases settle without anyone going to court.

A note on time limits. A disrepair claim is normally treated as a contract claim, with a limitation period of six years from when the landlord should have fixed the problem.^[11] Where part of the claim is for an injury to health — damp-related breathing problems, for instance — that element usually carries a shorter, three-year limit instead.^[11] Even long-running problems can often still be claimed for, but it makes sense to check where you stand rather than assume. Go in with a realistic timescale, too: disrepair claims usually take months rather than weeks to resolve, and some take longer — which is one more reason to complain first and keep the pressure on for repairs while any claim runs.