It doesn’t matter how bad landlords are, they seem get away with it. If they persistently rent out rooms transformed from sunny spaces into dark goth-caves emblazoned with black mold, or oblige tenants to sleep on soggy mattresses, they get away with it. Meanwhile, tenants vacating a home frequently suffer debilitating post-occupancy nerves, worried that the owner might give them no reference at all, or – devastating to their future housing prospects – a bad reference. To make matters worse, in England and Wales, some letting agents and landlords even charge for the privilege.

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It’s always intrigued me that rentiers are never required to jump through the same hoops as tenants. Whenever landlords apply for a buy-to-let mortgage, shouldn’t they pass a “fit and proper person” test? After all, they own the key not just to our happiness but to the roof over our heads. Shouldn’t landlords be assessed, or “rated” by their former tenants?

Unfortunately, rentiers can let out a property mostly without official oversight, and when tenancies end, in effect hold tenants to ransom; the implicit threat being “leave quietly or we can’t charge you up to £50 for a generic pro-forma reference”.

Increasingly, however, tenants enjoy the possibility of revenge, thanks to sites such as Marks Out of Tenancy and Rental Raters. Both sites publish reviews written by former tenants, positive and negative, of landlords and letting agents (the latter often the real villains). Interestingly, petty Trip Advisor-style griping about minor detail is scarce; most comments are carefully considered critiques. A few, where people have enjoyed a good tenancy, are even incredibly positive, but others call out terrible misbehaviour and disrepair, such as this example: “Been renting since 1994 and this is hands down the worst I’ve experienced – and I once lived in a squat.” Both landlords and property are identified by name and publicly shamed.

While some owners err because they are self-entitled, nasty and mean-spirited, others might not know any better

Across the UK landlords are still mostly unlicensed, with little effective training for even those new to the delicate business of managing money, repairs and tenants. While some owners err because they are self-entitled, nasty and mean-spirited, others might not know any better; that they are for instance, required by law to ensure life-saving regular gas safety checks, or give adequate notice of inspections (a common complaint from tenants living under the thumb of neophyte rentiers).

It’s only right and proper that tenants, whose only other recourse is to move out as soon as possible and put the unpleasant experience behind them, should actually have more power than they seem to at present. Even better is the growing possibility of a rental repayment order (RRO). These are currently restricted and strictly regulated, but their scope is soon to be widened.

A tenant can make an application for an RRO if their landlord commits one of the following offences: failing to obtain the correct licence, violent re-entry, unlawful eviction or harassment, failing to comply with an improvement notice served by the local authority, failing to comply with a prohibition order served by the local authority; or where the landlord is in breach of a banning order. If you pay your own rent then apply to the tribunal yourself, otherwise where rent is covered by housing benefit, the paying council apply and get their money back. Neat, isn’t it?

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Even limited and specific to certain examples of wrongdoing, RROs offer hope for justice. Perhaps the thought of being compelled to repay up to 12 months’ money will reform appalling landlords. A bad publicly viewable review is a strong deterrent for some, but where grievous misbehaviour persists, rentiers must face losing their licence, preventing them letting the property in the future. But where mismanagement is extreme, and neglect and disrepair has genuinely endangered life (as is the case with faulty electrical goods or gas supplies), I believe property itself should be forfeited.

The complaints posted online by tenants highlight serious problems much more dangerous than hotel towels being insufficiently fluffy, or that a waiter didn’t smile. Truly decrepit housing is a matter of life and death. When a tenancy has ended, rentiers should now suffer the same jitters as tenants do post-occupancy, with the threat of a lost revenue or a deliciously sarcastic, judiciously negative online reference to concentrate the mind. Tenants are powerless no more.

• Penny Anderson is a writer and artist. She blogs at thebunnytrickster.blogspot.co.uk