The boss of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme has given a cautious welcome to the idea of a ‘tripadvisor’ website in the lettings industry but the head of one of the largest landlord groups in the UK has hit out angrily at the idea.
Steve Harriott, TDS chief executive, said: “We are interested in exploring the best way to inform and educate tenants, and so the ideas from Consumer Focus are certainly worth investigating further.”
However, controversy is still building over the proposed rating website which would allow tenants to name and shame landlords and letting agents.
Watchdog Consumer Focus has called on the lettings industry to set up such a site at its own expense.
In particular, Consumer Focus – which is being canned by the Government, with its responsibilities to be taken over by Citzens Advice – has suggested that the three tenancy deposit schemes are the prime candidates for running it.
But Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, said he was appalled at the idea.
He said: “There must be concern about vindictive or malicious tenants posting on a tripadvisor-type system which would require moderating, and therefore have considerable cost.
“Tenants are almost universally un-informed about renting – they take more care when buying a car. Tenants never ask to see gas, electric or EPC certificates, and a good landlord should not object to being asked for a reference.
“However, high demand for property often means that tenants make instant decisions to take a property rather than lose it.”
Eviction service Landlord Assist said such a site would damage the buy-to-let industry.
The firm also said there was already sufficient redress for the failings of lettings agents, via various voluntary organisations and Trading Standards.
Managing director Graham Kinnear added: “Housing legislation is fairly complex. It is therefore likely that tenants who lack a full understanding of legislation may feel that their landlord or letting agent is not acting in the way they wish or at the speed they require.
“This may not be down to the individual but to the constraints of the legislative system that they work within.”
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Comments
Please read our site terms & conditions of use i hope this clarifies all the points you have raised. best Louise
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
By using this Website, you agree:
7.1 to use the Website for lawful purposes;
7.2 to accept full responsibility for any Review which you post on the Website;
7.3 that the content of any Review which you post will not contain any defamatory, offensive, threatening, abusive, racist, vulgar, obscene, profane, indecent or any otherwise objectionable material or post any Review that is intended to annoy, harass or intimidate another person or post a Review that will constitute a criminal offence or give rise to a civil liability;
7.4 that the Website is for your personal use only;
7.5 not to use the Website to solicit other users to become users of competitive online services, or to advertise or offer to sell any goods or services, or promote any surveys, contests or chain letters for any commercial purpose;
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7.7 not to upload files to the Website that contain viruses, corrupt files, or other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of the Website or another person’s computer, software, website, or network and you will be solely responsible for any damages from any claims that may arise because you posted files that caused damage to the operation of another person’s computer, software, websites, or network;
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7.10 to be responsible for ensuring and maintaining the confidentiality of your User ID.
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I agree with the poster below. In my opinion, your site is irresponsible, dangerous and will hold little credibility with tenants or landlords.
If I found a negative review about me, I would be taking you to court to prove the allegations.
Louise, I have questions for you about your site.
1) How do you know that a review has come from a tenant. What's to stop a letting agent or landlord writing hundreds of excellent reviews about themselves. What's to stop me posting a load of reviews about a local competitor?
2) How do you check that any of the reviews are correct? You leave yourself wide open to court cases of libel and character defamation.
3) The information you provide is personal, have you checked with data protection that the site is even legal?
4) What if the landlord has done everything correct but the tenants are bad people and give him a poor review. Or they just don't like the landlord and have never rented before. You run the risk of ruining a perfectly decent and honest landlord's chances of getting future tenants.
Thanks
There are already websites that cater for this. www.reviewcentre.co.uk is probably the biggest one. Just search for haart on there and you will get a feel for the type of people that like to write reviews, negative people.
Hi Gilles, i have just read your comments about "who is going to fund it?" we already have back in 2010 we launched an on-line review site for tenants to post reviews about Lettings Agents & Landlords of the uk, with a Landlord & Agent right to reply. http://www.rateorhateyourlandlord.com - the site is completely free for anyone to use & privately funded.
I run a reasonable sized letting company and we get complaints (and sometimes threatened) by prospective tenants if we turn them down for a property (usually down to bad references). Is it fair that they have the opportunity to then slag us off (probably with untruths) via a badly thought through site??????????
This looks like a dressed-up advertising site to me. The operators will sell "tenant-type" products in advertising on the site.
Nobody seems to "get" that the CUSTOMER of a letting agent is the LANDLORD, NOT the tenant!
Steve Harriott, leave it alone as it is nothing to do with TDS
WCF, it is a 'nasty', probably thought up by someone who has no understanding of human nature and who should be working on something useful.
Surely this idea is a non-starter. Who is going to fund it, let alone make money from it, given the investment in IT that would be involved plus the moderation? Bet you anything you like that anyone who thinks this is a business opportunity will be deluded enough to think that agents and landlords will actually pay for the privilege of being insulted online by tenants! As the story points out, Consumer watchdog is going to the wall anyway - all very well for it to suggest this idea, but another thing for someone else to actually do it. As has been said before, it is no part of the TDS remit.
The problem with all these review forums is that to leave a post you have to have some passion and that sadly is usually fired up by people that are not happy, it then gives companies a bad name when the majority are probably happy. I use Fasthosts for my hosting and I'm very happy with them but have never left a review. If I had looked at the reviews for them I woudn't have touched them, the reviews are awful. I've just gone to order some flowers from another company, valueflora and again the reviews are awful, so I went with another company. Who knows if that company is good or bad but reviews in the main seem mostly a negative bunch.....particularly when you are talking about companies that involve property and high emotions.....