When you have a really bad landlord who seems never to respond to anything you say while your living conditions just get worse and worse, it can really damage your enjoyment of life and your time at University.
Most individual problems with landlords can be dealt with by using our other guides, and patient polite negotiation is usually the best way to fix them. However, we know that sometimes people face such poor service that they want to take things further in order to stop other students having to face the same problems again next year.
So, what can you do?
Online Feedback
If you want to leave feedback on your house or landlord or area, click here (external link opens in new window). With any luck, your comments could forewarn other students.
Warning: don't get too personal, and don't ever put anything in writing that might be libellous. Remember - your comments are not private and landlords do web searches for their own names from time to time.
Landlord Accreditation (Council)
If your landlord is accredited by Stoke City Council or Stafford Borough Council (the landlord will probably use the accreditation scheme logo if they are), see if the problems you have had mean the landlord’s breached the scheme’s rules. If the landlord’s in breach of the rules, contact the council: the landlord could be removed from the accreditation scheme if a serious breach is proved.
Click here for the accreditation scheme rules (external link opens in new window; click on the "terms and conditions" link there to download the scheme rules).
Click here for Council contact information (external link opens in new window).
The landlord accreditation scheme logo looks like this:
The Union’s Accommodation List
In order to be on the GreenPad list of available accommodation, the landlord must be council accredited (see item 2) and the house must meet a set of minimum standards (the list of these is available via the Union’s Accommodation List page). If one or both of these things isn’t true about your house, contact Greenpad, the house could be removed from the Accommodation List as a result.
Click here for the Union's Accommodation List (external link to the GreenPad website; opens in new window).
Warning: if you do any of these things, it will probably make your relationship with the landlord even worse if they find out what you have done.
Remember: we do our best to link to only the best external sites but we cannot be held responsible for the quality or accuracy of such websites.
Please let us know if you find any broken links: we can't check everything all the time, but if you let us know what's missing we can go hunting for it and let you know where it's moved to.
Updated Nov 2018