Case Summaries
Back to Case SummariesAccommodation - CS112603
Case summary November 2026 | Partly Justified
A student was placed on a leave of absence which meant their provider owned accommodation licence had ended. They complained that a valuable personal item was damaged when it was removed from their accommodation during the room clearance by the security team. They provided photographs of scratches and a repair quote.
The provider investigated but concluded that the evidence did not establish when or how the damage occurred. It said there was no footage of the item being removed and considered the repair quote disproportionate to the damage. It therefore took no further action.
The student complained to the OIA because they felt the investigation had been inadequate. We saw that the provider had carried out a reasonable investigation but were concerned that the provider had failed to record the room clearance. The provider confirmed that it had instructed security staff to record the clearance and knew that this item was valuable, but there had been no recorded footage of the item being removed. The lack of records meant the provider could not independently establish what had happened.
We did not conclude that the provider had caused damage to the item. However, we considered that the provider should have taken its own failure to record the removal into account when deciding how to resolve the complaint. It hadn’t done so, and the absence of recording of the item’s removal amounted to minor maladministration in the clearance of the room. We therefore decided the complaint was Partly Justified. We recommended the provider offer the sum of £350 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the decision to take no further action in relation to the complaint.