Research finds that most landlords have clear websites
Landlords tend to provide clear information on their websites, however some need to make their emergency contact information more easily available, recent research finds.
The Scottish Housing Regulator’s (SHR) tenant advisors, looked at 36 landlords, 28 of which were registered social landlords and 8 local authorities.
They reported that the majority of landlords appear to have a website, all 36 in the study had one and it was easy to find emergency contact numbers on 30 out of 36 of the sites.
They also found clear links on the home page of 22 websites to emergency contact information.
The regulator is engaging with some landlords to follow up on the findings.
Margaret Sharkey, Assistant Director of Regulation said:
“It’s important that tenants can find out how to contact their landlord quickly if they need to in an emergency. So, it’s good news that our Tenant Advisors found most landlords they looked at made it easy to find straightforward information about how to do this.
“These are positive findings, but some landlords have more to do to improve the availability of emergency contact information for tenants. Alongside the findings, we’ve shared some of the things our Tenant Advisors told us they considered to be positive practice from the sector for landlords to consider in improving the availability of emergency contact information for tenants.”
Landlords were chosen to reflect the variety of social landlords operating across the sector in Scotland such as large and small, urban and rural and those with supported client groups.
The SHR regulates around 160 registered social landlords and the housing activities of 32 local authorities.