SUSU Attempts to Stop Lousy Lettings

It’s been quite a year with Facebook ‘like’ pages in Southampton, but is this the ultimate one? ‘Lousy Lettings‘ has been (unofficially) set up to provide students across Southampton with horror stories about certain agents and landlords in a bid to help them avoid problems and being ripped off.

It has been set up to get some justice towards all those agents that treat students poorly as well as to recognise those who deserve it. Stories can be posted on the wall and advice will also be provided about who to contact when making complaints about an agent and how to go about this. Trading Standards for example, investigate a company if they receive just two complaints.

This comes at a time when SUSU start to prepare the set up of their own independent letting agency project on campus, in time to open in early 2014. The project comes as a solution to the issues found in the ‘Vent About Your Rent Survey’, which took place in 2013 and aims to provide great quality provision to all its members and a fair and helpful lettings service to students.

VP Welfare Beckie Thomas said:

This is such an exciting opportunity for us to change something which is so important to students, and it’s happened as a direct result of their feedback.  Students consistently told us that they felt ripped off and taken advantage of by local agents.  They felt pressured to sign up for a house contract really early, and often made poor choices as a result.  Students trust SUSU to give them a fair deal and to champion their rights, and the lettings agency will give us the opportunity to do that in an area of real need.

In a bid to expand their portfolio, SUSU are asking for students help. If you are happy with your landlord, and they are happy for you to pass on their details, email [email protected] with name of landlord, number of properties they own, addresses of landlords if possible, landlord email and phone number. This will help create a fairer letting experience for other students of Southampton. SUSU are even offering to the first person to recommend their landlord £50 if they go on to sign up with them.

Do you think this a good idea? Would you be happy to use the SUSU Lettings Agency? Let us know in the comments!