There is something deeply satisfying about giving feedback whether it’s a fat one-star for a useless Uber driver, or five-stars for an exemplary hotel, restaurant or Airbnb.
But what about the home you rent? Isn’t it time tenants were able to rate their landlord or letting agent and keep them on their toes, while also leveling-out the balance of power between them and their landlord.
Happily, several rental property ratings services have emerged onto the tech scene which enable tenants to give feedback.
www.MarksOutofTenancy.com
Marks Out of Tenancy launched in April 2019 as a national service. It enables tenants to rate their property and the landlord or letting agent managing it, giving their overall experience ‘marks out of ten’. The website also enables tenants to take ‘before and after pictures’ of their property to help them when they check-out and leave comments about their experiences of the property, landlord or letting agent.
www.Homeviews.co.uk
Homeviews is a reviews website launched early in 2019 for new-build apartment blocks. It organises itself by development and enables tenants living in each one to post reviews about their experiences of renting properties. As well as being able to write TripAdvisor-style reviews, tenants can give a ‘score out of five’ for their developments’ management, facilities, design and value.
www.TrustPilot.co.uk
This online reviews website was launched in 2007 and is the leading one of its kind in the world and covers every type of business, including letting agents. Anyone can post reviews of their experiences and both leave a written evaluation and give a score out of five stars. Companies can challenge your review if they feel it is unfair or malicious. TrustPilot then runs a moderation and verification process between the person giving the review and the company involved.
www.AllAgents.co.uk
If it’s just your letting agent who you want to feedback about then try AllAgents, which went live in 2006 and enables tenants to post a written review of their experience with an agent as well as giving them between one and five stars for the service.The downside of AllAgents is that both lettings and property sales agent reviews are mixed in together. Or try a very similar service, called www.viewagents.com which launched in late 2018.
www.RateYourLandlord.org.uk
This website was launched in 2017 and does what it says on the tin but is only for Leeds students. It was set up by a charity in partnership with the city’s universities. It was established by a student housing group called Unipol which also has operations in Nottingham and Bradford. It may expand the Rate Your Landlord service into these cities at a later date. The platform enables tenants to give feedback marked out of five for a landlord or letting agent based on eight criteria including contract signing and letting, repairs, customers service, value for money and deposit handling.
CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score
If you want to improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments, CreditLadder is the only way to improve your credit score and position across all four of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money.
CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.
Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.
