Sorting the star from the slum landlords

The website aims to provide a place for tenants to rate their landlord and provide a property review with the aim of reducing the amount of what the site calls "problem" landlords.

"Privately rented housing tenants are still getting a bum deal when it comes to housing standards and poor housing in particular," the website says.

"Essentially Tenancy Support NZ is a place to come and rate your landlords and leave housing reviews - good or bad - for private rented homes you have lived in and a place to use that information when looking to rent your next home."

Gordon said that shared experience of poor rental accommodation – and the space in the market left by the closure of the landlordcheck.co.nz website – prompted him and fellow director Souden to develop Tenancy Support.

Legal issues mean the site cannot include a 'rating' of any landlord that hasn't provided written consent to appear on the site, something Gordon said was "of huge concern to us."

"We were concerned that bad landlords, by refusing to sign, would effectively get away with their unscrupulous behaviour and go un-warned of," he said.

To mitigate this problem they struck a deal with the Ministry of Justice allowing them to re-publish details of tenancy tribunals on the website.

"So even if the landlord refused to sign, we could, or our member could, search by name or address, the estimated 60,000 publicly held records from the Ministry of Justice, right here on our site. Which means that refusal to sign does not in any way guarantee that the band landlord will not receive a mention."

Auckland Property Investors Association president David Whitburn supports exposing bad landlords, but doesn't believe the website will succeed.

"It will get some people that will post but it won't get that much traction, most tenants can't be bothered."

Whitburn said the amended Residential Tenancies Act has played a more constructive role in dealing with poor landlords and that similar websites to Tenancy Support had been tried before - and failed.

"I think it's a bit unnecessary. I just don't think it'll be very popular."