Following the release of the Rate Your Landlord Report 2011-12, we're highlighting the specific recommendations made in the report and what your Students’ Union is doing to implement them.

There are 6 key recommendations made in the report and over the next few weeks we’re going to highlight one of these each week. We've already talked about how greater regulation could help.

Establish a high profile local awards scheme

The Rate Your Landlord survey identified some very poor practice amongst private sector property providers and very low satisfaction levels amongst students. Whilst the results were very depressing they were not unfortunately altogether surprising as this is something that students tell us year after year.

For example, in this years’ Rate Your Landlord survey letting agents were ranked using a scoring system based on students’ ratings of their experience. The highest scoring letting agent only scored 3 out of a possible 20 and the lowest scoring letting agent scored -15 with the lowest score possible being -20.

Whilst all of the recommendations in the The Rate Your Landlord Report 2011-12 aim to improve private sector housing for students we felt that the introduction of a high-profile awards scheme where property providers have to score highly across a range of categories (including good customer service, speed of problem resolution, low upfront costs, good condition of property etc) in order to ‘win’ an award would act as a particularly good incentive for property providers to improve standards.

We also felt that that the introduction of a satisfaction award scheme would give students an opportunity to better gauge the likely levels of service they will receive from any particular property provider as the awards will be based on the survey findings filled out by their fellow students. Students can simply look to see if a particular agent or landlord has been given an award for that particular year and can even request a breakdown of how they scored under each category.

We have already held a meeting with officers and staff from the Students’ Union at the University of Brighton and are working together to establish an awards scheme this year based on the findings of the next survey, which is due to launch at the end of November.

More about the report

You can download the complete report [pdf] or read it online below

For more information about the report and any of the recommendations it makes, contact Indi Hicks, Students' Union Welfare Officer.

Don't forget that our Advice & Representation Centre can provide free, independent and confidential advice on a range of issues including housing.

You can contact us or browse our online housing advice.

Read the report online

Don't forget that our Advice & Representation Centre can provide free, independent and confidential advice on a range of issues including housing.