Treehaus Launches Today!
Today, Treehaus launches the first-ever national rental database and landlord review platform.
Set up by social entrepreneur Neil Nichols and technologist Mark Brown, Treehaus is a platform fighting for accountability in the rental sector.
In no other industry does the customer get treated poorly, with so little recourse when things go wrong. At Treehaus, we believe there has to be a better way, and our campaign aims to give a voice to the voiceless.
We are on a mission to get 1 million reviews from tenants - both positive and negative - making landlords more accountable, and over time, giving tenants a database to find only highly-rated, good landlords.
You can leave a review by visiting https://www.treehaus.com/ and entering your postcode.
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A rental revolution is needed
Our campaign to give tenants a voice is a response to the systematic unfairness in the growing private rental sector.
Generation Rent states that 13 million people in the UK rent from a private landlord - that's 1 in 5. However, in 2019-20, the English Housing Survey reported that more than 1 in 5 homes in the rental sector did not meet the Decent Homes Standard.
If a tenant is living in poor conditions, there is currently no practical means of redress. Despite an increasing number of government initiatives - including the recent announcement of a register of landlords and a set of national standards that will require landlords to refit non-compliant properties so that they are ‘safe, warm and in a good state of repair’ - the way that private rental is regulated means the changes may not ensure consistent fair treatment for tenants.
Worse still, rising rental costs are taking up a huge proportion of household income. In fact, in London, private renters spend a staggering 42% of their household income on rent.
Connecting tenants with good landlords
It may not come as a shock therefore that in a survey we sent to tenants, 95% of those asked said they thought the rental industry was not fair.
Despite this, 40% of tenants said their landlords and properties were good or very good.
The Treehaus mission is therefore to help connect tenants with good landlords, and drive up standards for the rest.
After months of research and data-digging, we have identified 80-90 percent of UK private and social rented properties, so users should be able to type in their postcode, find their property and leave a review.
We hope to transform the rental industry for the better - and through leaving a review, you can be a part of the revolution.
To leave a review for your rental property, visit www.treehaus.com and enter your postcode.