RentalRaters is the first national website to be launched that carries reviews of properties that tenants have rented. The website's creator is Hannah Williams, a private renter herself who lives with her two children in Crystal Palace.

The site has only just been launched and already a few reviews have surfaced. She said that the idea came to her when she learnt of a friend's encounter with a "rogue landlord". She also explained that she cannot at this moment, afford a hefty mortgage down-payment and feels that she will become part of the Generation Rent brigade for some time yet.

 

“The main catalyst for me starting up the site was a very good friend of mine was stung very, very badly by a rogue landlord," she told The Independent.

“He said to me – and the words really resonated – ‘I just wish that I could stand outside that property and tell other tenants as they’re walking through the door, don’t do it, he will rip you off, nothing works.’

“I just thought it was crazy that we live in this amazing connected world, and yet there isn’t an online way of doing that, where you are able to highlight where you’ve had a fantastic experience, and obviously where you’ve had a very bad experience.”

She feels that it is time for a level playing field for both tenants and landlords, as they are able to carry out the necessary reference and credit checks on prospective tenants, whereas there is no redress for tenants to do the same on landlords and letting agents.

Ms Williams feels that the website will succeed as the public, before buying anything nowadays, will look at reviews of the items or services that they are thinking of purchasing.

“We’re very used to doing it for small scale things like dining out, so it seems crazy to me that for something that is so fundamental – the place in which you live – you wouldn’t leave a review when you vacated that property for the benefit of other tenants.”

The problem with such content , as on occasion it has occured with Trip Advisor, besides the online attacks there have been threats of legal suits. Of course RentalRaters could lead tenants to air their views in a rather personal nature erring into abuse, it of course also allows the landlords to answer back....but again it could lead to legal conflict. 

 

Ms.Williams is only too aware of this danger and will "police" the reviews and take an entry off the site if it deserves it. So far she reports back that up to 70 per cent of the reviews have been favourable.

Ms. Williams said: “We’re absolutely not here to rubbish landlords – in fact, we think it’s really important that if you are a good landlord people know about you,” and feels that this will help good landlords by their properties receiving good reviews.

Richard Lambert,  a landlords association chief officer, said: “The idea of rating your experience of renting a property has an undoubted appeal. [But] while most tenants will in all likelihood provide honest and reliable feedback on their experience, websites like this always under-represent long term and successful tenancies as they focus on rating those that have come to an end – the point at which the relationship between landlords and tenants is potentially most under strain.”

Alex Hilton, director of tenants’ campaign group Generation Rent, commented: “While we support anything that empowers tenants in their relationships with landlords and letting agents, the best landlords don’t have a high turnover, which gives a Trip Advisor-style rating system a real challenge. There’s also a danger that schemes could lead to landlords threatening litigation, as we have seen with the Government’s GP rating scheme.”