DARVO in Action
In January 2026, Clarion Housing investigated complaints from resident Sarah Killick and concluded that it had identified “no service failures.” However, within weeks one of Clarion’s own senior managers had reached a very different conclusion, there had been “several failures.”
Information in the original complaint response had been inaccurate. Repairs had not been progressed efficiently, the communication between teams and contractors had failed, whilst repair timescales had become unacceptable, and diagnosis had been poor. Clarion awarded £800 compensation. For Sarah, that was nowhere near the end of the story.
What followed was an increasingly fractured relationship in which Sarah continued pursuing repairs and challenging what she believed were inaccurate or contradictory accounts, while Clarion increasingly documented concerns about Sarah herself. These included; her language, the frequency of her contact, her social-media activity and her behaviour. For those of you who aren't new here, you'll already see a very familiar pattern forming. For those of you who are new, you too might recognise the first step in what we've now established is a playbook.
A VIP isn’t as glamorous as the name first suggests. In most of housing, and certainly at Clarion, it actually means Visit in Pairs. This is a marker that has remained on her account, as such communication arrangements were imposed, and warnings about further restrictions followed.
And Sarah, rightly, kept complaining.
Housing Sector has previously examined DARVO — Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender — and how the focus of a dispute can shift from the original complaint towards the behaviour of the person making it. Sarah Killick’s case allows us to examine what that can look like from both sides. And, importantly, what it feels like to the resident living through it.
“No service failures”
On 29 January 2026, Clarion issued its Stage 1 response to complaints concerning repairs, damp and mould, plastering, heating and concerns about how Sarah had been described internally. This time its conclusion was clear.
Clarion said it was unable to offer compensation because it had identified “no service failures from our teams in line with our policies and procedure.” Sarah immediately challenged that response, and the case escalated, However Clarion’s position changed considerably.
During Stage 2, a senior manager acknowledged that information provided at Stage 1 concerning some of the issues was “not completely accurate”, attributing this largely to failures in communication between internal teams.
The subsequent findings went further. Clarion acknowledged “several failures” towards Sarah’s household. It said the Stage 1 response should have awarded compensation.
It identified significant failures in progressing responsive repairs, communication failures between internal teams and third-party contractors, unacceptable repair durations and a lack of robust diagnosis which had resulted in poor resolutions.
Clarion awarded £800.
The difference between the two responses is difficult to ignore. Whilst one said there had been no service failure, the other acknowledged several.
This always bemuses me. How much investigative work is actually put into a Stage 1 review? Is it anything more than a curious glance and a brief chat over coffee with a work pal?
We may never know.
When the resident becomes part of the complaint
Sarah does not pretend she remained calm throughout what followed. She became angry, and as residents, we often do — and rightfully so. After all, these units are our homes.
She says one particularly angry telephone call came during the middle of winter, with black mould on the walls, weeks without heating and mounting frustration at being unable to get somebody to respond.
Sarah says senior Clarion manager James Waddon subsequently told her that the January telephone call was connected to a VIP or Visit in Pairs marker on her account. But Clarion’s own later correspondence adds another layer.
During Stage 2, Waddon recorded that subsequent telephone conversations and a site visit had been respectful and that there were “no further concerns from myself or my staff that has attended your property.” Yet Sarah says the marker remained.
She says she challenged it through the complaints process but has never been given a meaningful appeal process, review date or end date. Again, an all-too-familiar pattern — familiar enough for us to assume it is part of the playbook.
Housing Sector asked Clarion when the marker was applied, who authorised it, why it remained in place and what process exists for reviewing and removing such markers. However, we have not heard back from Clarion.
Vexations
Housing Sector has previously used the collective term “Vexations” to describe the labels, warnings, markers and communication restrictions that can begin to surround residents who become persistent complainants.
But it’s not our collective noun, and I can take no credit for it. It was only after I heard the term used multiple times across different housing associations that I began to consider whether it was a kind of code word — one that would quickly inform those in the know about the sort of person they were dealing with. Sarah’s case illustrates why we began asking questions about it.
Clarion has legitimate concerns of its own.
In August, it documented extremely high levels of contact from Sarah, including emails and social-media posts. From my firsthand experience, there tends to be a lot of email traffic when repairs are ignored, emails aren’t responded to, calls are missed and people don’t turn up when they agreed to.
It also recorded examples of language and behaviour that it regarded as abusive, threatening or intimidating. And here is this century’s solution to winning almost any argument, regardless of how loose the ground beneath you may be; play the “I’m offended” card and close the conversation down before you lose the argument.
But let us be fair, the evidence matters and it would certanly appear that Sarah can be confrontational.
Staff should not be expected to accept abuse simply because somebody has a legitimate complaint. But neither does difficult behaviour make the underlying problem disappear.
That distinction matters particularly in Sarah’s case because Clarion’s own Stage 2 findings established that some of the issues she had persistently pursued involved genuine service failures.
A resident can communicate badly and still be right about a failed repair. They can become angry and still have a legitimate complaint. They can, and in some cases must, become difficult to deal with while still raising questions their landlord needs to answer. What is without doubt is the landlord’s difficulty in maintaining its properties that is the catalyst for all that follows.
The issue is what happens when managing the resident begins to consume more attention than managing the problem, and the more secretive, less-publicised playbook becomes necessary.
Communication becomes another battleground
By August, the relationship had deteriorated significantly. Clarion documented the volume and nature of Sarah’s communications and established arrangements governing future contact.
Correspondence was to go through central customer services. Named officers were identified. Regular updates were proposed and written responses were to be provided.
Clarion also warned that continued behaviour it considered unacceptable could lead to further restrictions or potentially legal action.
Sarah sees the chronology differently.
She says the repeated contact was itself the product of repeatedly having to chase information, challenge inaccurate records and pursue repairs. That doesn't excuse every message, but it creates a cycle familiar to many prolonged complaints.
A resident doesn't receive an answer, so they chase, the chase produces more correspondence. more correspondence becomes evidence of excessive contact.
Contact is restricted, and the same loop plays again, and again. The resident then has fewer routes through which to resolve the original problem. The question becomes whether the process designed to manage communication can eventually become another obstacle to resolving the complaint itself.
Because if it did, that would go against the National Housing Federation’s guide to good conduct — or, as it’s known here, “The NHF Guide to Almost Getting Away With It.”
Which version do you believe?
The drainage dispute illustrates the collapse in trust.
Clarion correspondence records that following a Metro Rod inspection, the condition of the drainage system had deteriorated since an earlier visit on 31 July 2026. Recommended repairs were to be completed as soon as possible to prevent further deterioration and minimise associated impact.
Sarah says her problems with blocked toilets stretch back years and says earlier surveys identified more serious drainage defects. According to Sarah the drainage has completely collapsed and that recent information from an Environmental Health Officer and surveyor supports serious concerns about its condition.
Housing Sector has not independently verified all of those latest claims and is therefore not presenting them as established findings. But the documentary evidence already shows Sarah receiving differing accounts concerning problems with her home.
Eventually, she reduced her frustration to a very simple question
“Who’s version do I believe?”
It may be the most important question in the entire story. Once a resident discovers that something they were previously told was inaccurate, every subsequent answer becomes harder to accept without checking it. Trust disappears and the resident starts documenting everything.
And so should you. From that first email to the last call, you must keep your evidence. Any housing association worth its salt should surely welcome the opportunity to be open, honest and transparent. So keep the emails, record the calls, note the names, agreed dates, promises and timescales. After all, if everyone is doing what they say they are doing, none of this should be a problem.
The recordings
That documentation produced another discovery. Sarah says she learned through Subject Access Request material that interactions involving her had been recorded. She subsequently challenged Clarion staff and the drainage contractor.
Clarion has since made an important acknowledgement. In correspondence concerning Sarah’s concerns, it stated:
“Where we have been made aware of recordings, requests have been made for those recordings to be deleted.”
That statement raises obvious questions. Who made the recordings? Why were they made? Were they authorised by Clarion? Was Sarah informed? Where were they stored? Were they shared? And if deletion was subsequently requested, what steps were taken to establish where every copy existed? Sarah says she has received no satisfactory explanation.
Housing Sector is not suggesting, without further evidence, that the recordings were unlawful. We have asked Clarion to explain the circumstances in which they were made and subsequently requested to be deleted. However, we have not heard back from Clarion.
5,000 items in one month
Sarah has increasingly relied on Subject Access Requests to establish what has been recorded about her. Her latest request was submitted on 22 August. Clarion originally gave a deadline of 22 September but subsequently extended it to 22 October. Its explanation included a remarkable figure.
Clarion said some information was digitally archived and required specialist retrieval.
Adding;
“There are at least 5000 items of data that meet your current Subject Access Request, and these will need to be reviewed.”
The disclosure period identified by Clarion runs from 23 July to 22 August 2026.
That does not mean Clarion produced 5,000 emails about Sarah in a month. An “item of data” could encompass many different things, including automated records, attachments or duplicated information.
Housing Sector has therefore asked Clarion what constitutes an individual item and how the figure should properly be understood. However, we have not heard back from Clarion.
Nevertheless, it provides some indication of the extraordinary administrative footprint that can develop around one resident, one household and one deteriorating relationship.
That said, if the ICO had any real bite, it might be challenging the fact that housing associations seem unable to effectively manage and successfully retrieve all the data they hold.
What it feels like
Behind those thousands of items is a person. Sarah is a full-time carer to her 22-year-old son. Her other son is at university.
Like so many of us, she says that before the dispute escalated, she had a social life. Now she describes getting up and researching legislation, legal processes, Housing Ombudsman reports and investigations.
Sarah is what the Housing Sector lovingly refers to as a reluctant hero, and she joins a growing group — an extended universe, if you like. None of us chose this path, but would we have done so were it not for the protection of our families and the safety of our communities?
How many others missed their purpose because they missed the significance of the issues they were facing, or because they buckled at the first threat of legal action?
Sarah checks portals, she records calls, she chases responses, she has learned how to make court applications and contacted charities, friends and acquaintances for help.
“The battle with Clarion has literally consumed every living moment of 2026,” - she told Housing Sector.
Her family, she says, sees their mother stressed, continually calling Clarion and dealing with the consequences of a dispute which appears to have spread far beyond the original repairs. For Sarah, trust has disappeared completely.
“I have zero trust for Clarion,”
She describes scrutinising messages and commitments because experience has taught her that words do not necessarily result in action.
“If they can't be honest, transparent and refuse to acknowledge any form of accountability, how then can trust be rebuilt?”
Sarah says she would still welcome an honest conversation. But her description of how the relationship now feels is considerably darker.
She says she feels as though she is in “a mentally abusive relationship with a faceless cruel abuser.”
And, of course, an abusive relationship is where the term DARVO was initially coined. Yet how else can you explain being trapped in a toxic relationship where there is no trust and there has been an utter breakdown in communication?
I should imagine even the best marriage guidance counsellor would tell us to throw the towel in on this one.
DARVO in action?
DARVO stands for Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender.
Housing Sector is not making a finding about Clarion’s motive, nor suggesting that every action it has taken towards Sarah was improper. There may be legitimate reasons for measures designed to protect staff or manage communications.
But then, don’t all rules start off with protection in mind, only to be quickly corrupted to protect those who do not need protecting?
But look at the chronology.
Clarion initially said there were “no service failures.” It subsequently acknowledged “several failures.” As the relationship deteriorated, increasing attention was directed towards Sarah’s language, behaviour, social-media activity and volume of contact.
A VIP marker remained, and communication arrangements followed, with the very real threat of further restrictions followed. Meanwhile, some of the underlying failures Sarah had been pursuing were acknowledged by Clarion itself.
That does not prove deliberate DARVO. But it does meet the threshold for asking whether the framework helps explain what happened next.
Did the focus gradually shift from the problems Sarah was reporting towards Sarah herself? And if it did, what did that mean for resolving the problems with her home?
The toil nobody measures
Housing providers measure complaints, and (in theory at least) they measure response times.
They measure repairs, satisfaction, performance and compliance. What is much harder to measure is the amount of unpaid work a resident can end up doing when the system doesn't work.
The emails, the telephone calls, the photographs, the portal checks, the complaints, the escalations, the Subject Access Requests, the documents, the Ombudsman cases, the research and the checking of one answer against another — and then doing it all again tomorrow. Sarah describes the process as “unbearable” and “demoralising”. “The getting repairs is one thing,” she told Housing Sector. “It's the abusive process of getting them done which is worse.” Again, “abusive” is Sarah’s characterisation.
But the toil itself is visible.
There are complaints, escalations, repair orders, surveys, internal communications, contact arrangements, Subject Access Requests and thousands of potentially responsive data items.
Somewhere underneath all of it remains something considerably simpler. A resident wanted problems with her home fixed.
Two things can be true
Sarah has become angry and has been confrontational. And what mother wouldn’t be when fighting for the rights of her children — one of whom, I must remind you, she is a full-time carer for — to live in a home that meets the most basic criteria of being warm, safe, dry and affordable?
Clarion has documented legitimate concerns about some of her communications. Those facts should not be hidden because they complicate the story. They are to a certain degree - the story.
Clarion has also acknowledged that its original complaint response contained inaccuracies. It subsequently identified several failures and It acknowledged significant problems progressing repairs, communication failures, unacceptable repair durations and inadequate diagnosis.
Those two realities can exist simultaneously.
A landlord can have legitimate concerns about how a resident communicates while the resident continues to have legitimate concerns about their home. One does not cancel out the other. A valid repair does not stop being valid because the resident becomes angry. A drainage problem does not disappear because somebody sends too many emails. And an inaccurate answer does not become accurate because the person challenging it becomes difficult to deal with. Perhaps that is where the real danger of the process lies.
When the resident becomes the problem, the original problem can become remarkably easy to lose.
Housing Sector sent Clarion a detailed right to reply on 24 September covering its complaint findings, the VIP marker, communication management, drainage, recordings and Sarah’s Subject Access Request.
After receiving no response, Housing Sector contacted Clarion again and specifically explained that we were considering Sarah’s experience through the DARVO framework.
Clarion was invited to challenge that interpretation and provide any evidence or context it believed should be considered. At the time of writing, Clarion had not responded.