No hot water, no working lock, and something growing in the corner.

The strongest version of this claim is built from inside the room, not from your kitchen table a week after checkout.

Read this first

Report it while you are still in the room

Give them one chance to fix it, in writing, and note the time you did. This costs you nothing and it decides the case. If they fix it quickly you may have a modest claim or none, which is a fair outcome. If they do not, you now hold a dated report plus a documented failure to act, and that combination is what converts a complaint into a claim. A complaint raised only after checkout hands them the one answer they always reach for: we were never given the opportunity to put it right. Do not hand them that. Report it, in writing, from the room.

What you are owed

A refund, in proportion to what was not delivered

You paid for functioning, habitable accommodation. No hot water for one morning of a five night stay is a partial claim. A room you could not sleep in, or would not sleep in, is the night. Sewage, a lock that does not lock, or a missing smoke alarm are not comfort issues at all, and they should be named as safety failures rather than folded into a general complaint about standards.

The cost of leaving, if the condition justified leaving

The replacement room, the transport, the laundry, the meals you had to buy because the facilities you paid for did not work. Receipts, itemised, with dates. Claim what you can evidence and nothing beyond it.

An inspection, where the condition warrants one

For pests, mould, sewage and safety, the local authority is the most powerful lever a hotel guest has, and it is the one complaint a general manager cannot quietly close. In the United States that is the city or county health department. In the UK it is the local council's environmental health team. In most of the EU it is the municipal or regional health inspectorate. Report it factually, as a public health matter and not as a refund request, and verify the correct authority for the property's address rather than assuming.

How they will refuse, and what answers it

“You never reported it during your stay.”

If you did, produce the time, the channel, the name of the person you told and any ticket number they issued. If you genuinely did not, say so, rely on the photographs and on anything they put in writing afterwards, and accept that the claim is weaker. Never invent a report you did not make; your credibility is the load-bearing element of the whole file.

“Maintenance attended and the issue was resolved.”

Ask for the maintenance log: the time of attendance, what was done, and by whom. If nobody came, say precisely that, with the date, the time you were told to expect them, and the name of whoever told you.

“You were offered a room change and you refused it.”

If the offer was to an equivalent room with the same fault, or it arrived on the final night, say so. If you were offered nothing at all, state that plainly and ask them to produce the record of the offer they say they made. They will usually not have one.

Gather this before you write

□Dated photographs and video of the condition, unedited, plus the room number in a frame of its own
□Your written report to the property, with the time, the channel, the name of the person told and any case or ticket number
□Their reply, and the maintenance record if they will produce it
□The booking confirmation and the listing description of what was supposed to be provided
□Receipts for anything the failure forced you to buy, including a replacement room
□Any report you made to a health or environmental health authority, with its reference number

Now make them answer.

Tell us what happened in your own words. We write the letters, set the deadlines, and email each escalation on the day it is due.