Today we’re launching our partnership with Marks Out Of Tenancy, a website which allows you to search, review and rate letting agents and landlords.

The pledge to have a landlord review platform was one of my manifesto commitments because I’ve seen how hard it is for students to know where to look when renting, given all the information available, which can make the whole process quite confusing.

Students have been informally reviewing their landlords for many years, through word of mouth or posting on Facebook pages, now we are able to put these experiences in an easily accessible and dedicated place.

In other cities where Marks Out Of Tenancy operates, landlords who have consistently bad reviews are targeted for action by local authorities, who are progressively having their housing enforcement reduced due to financial pressures.

We hope that this site will allow our Council to quickly identify problem landlords and agencies, so that they can take action more quickly.

However; Marks out of Tenancy is not just to highlight those who are offering a bad service to students.

Our focus in the Students’ Union has mostly been around this area, on targeting the bad practice that we see across the city. With that we have neglected to give credit to landlords who work hard to give their tenants a high quality experience. If we do not acknowledge the good actions in the sector then what incentive is there for others to improve?

I’m pleased we’re able to announce this alongside our friends at Nottingham Trent SU — which aside from Varsity makes this the second big joint project we are working on after the Nottingham Students’ Manifesto for the General Election.

Increasingly our students are living in the same communities alongside each other so this makes sense for us to join forces and pool our resources for the benefit of students at both our universities.

In the coming months we’ll be working together to get as many students to review their experience through activity around the University and speaking to students out in the community.

You can leave a review at marksoutoftenancy.com