Helping tenants Rent with Confidence

It produced a series of recommendations to create a wider package of housing measures aimed at improving standards and choice by supporting a responsible private rented sector offer.

Most landlords in the city provide good, well-managed accommodation, however it is often still difficult for residents to make informed choices with some providers hiding poor standards behind clever marketing.

“We were increasingly finding that private sector tenants were living in poor conditions.”

We were increasingly finding that private sector tenants were living in poor conditions and not realising that they had the choice to move to better homes with a better landlord. We wanted to change that and give that choice back to residents by helping them to choose.

We are hoping this will change the dynamic in the private rental market with customer choice driving the improvement of services and standards.

We felt it was necessary that a proactive, fair, and simple approach was taken to engage with the thousands of landlords across the city.

‘Rent with Confidence’ was piloted in April 2016 and officially launched in October, with the aim to encourage greater customer choice and raise living standards.

The scheme goes above and beyond the statutory legal minimum requirement in terms of managing private rented sector housing – and is pioneering the way local authorities work with private landlords.

Overall, it is expected the scheme will see improved health and well-being of residents, along with better property and housing management standards, and longer-term stability in neighbourhoods.

The five-star rating system functions in a similar way to the rating scheme used by the Food Standards Agency for restaurants and takeaways.

It has been formulated in consultation with landlords and partner agencies, is based on five key principles: property, maintenance, legal compliance, continued professional development (CPD), and investment in the city.

Each element is weighted and together provides a final score and associated star rating.

Stars are awarded to landlords who comply with the law and who rent out property above the minimum statutory standards, with financial incentives for five-star landlords. Those who support work to improve the lives of residents in the city are actively encouraged and rewarded through the star rating.

Visually, Rent with Confidence is easily recognisable and helps tenants and other housing providers identify the best landlords through official branding.

“The five-star rating system functions in a similar way to the rating scheme used by the Food Standards Agency.”

Three to five-star landlords are given access to a new property website portal, where only council-approved properties are advertised. The council will be looking to work with star-rated landlords to provide a wider private rented offer in the city that residents feel confident renting from.

The database of properties available through the scheme will be gradually built up over time as the Rent with Confidence web portal becomes the main search engine for private rented properties in the city. Tenants can register their interest in finding accommodation in the city on the website.

To deal with the initial large influx of requests, landlords have been invited to self-assess their properties on the portal to gain a preliminary rating with the council undertaking an assessment of the application and inspection to confirm the ratings.

All star ratings are published on the website for tenants and landlords to view, along with a feature giving up-to-date information on which legal notices have been served on landlords.

The best landlords are highlighted and education support, where required, is provided to help them maintain and improve their top star status.

Rogue landlords and criminal landlords are being hit with a revised and more robust enforcement policy, and further use of the council’s legal powers.

The scheme has a transparent appeals procedure with the onus on the landlord to provide evidence to support their appeal.

Almost 650 properties and more than 200 landlords have been star-rated in the first six months of the programme being officially launched.

Now, landlords and managing agents are being invited to engagement events to discuss further ways the ‘Rent with Confidence’ team can work in partnership with them to help make more improvements to private sector rented housing living standards in the city.

Christopher Hale, head of housing, Wolverhampton City Council