A TEAM of York students is looking to eradicate housing horrors for students not only in the city but across the country with its latest online venture.

RateMyUniHouse is the brainchild of University of York student Tara Annison, who is hoping to be named a finalist in the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category in the Press Business Awards, alongside submitting the company for the New Business of the Year title.

Founded just over three years ago, RateMyUniHouse is a student property rating website which allows students to leave a review for a property which they have rented while at university.

Working with two others, Miss Annison is working to create a more transparent housing market for students, where good landlords are celebrated and the bad are encouraged to improve.

Miss Annison said: "One of our many advantages is that as three students at the University of York, we understand this market and the challenges students face with private sector accommodation.

"In my second year at University I was unfortunate to have a particularly bad landlord who left our heating broken throughout winter, took almost £1000 off our deposit and who we had numerous other problems with.

"What frustrated me the most is that I had no way to warn the next tenants about these issues and so the idea for RateMyUniHouse was born.

"We aim to be working with, not against the agencies and landlords, in order to improve student housing across not only York but the entire UK.

"We’ll then be employing brand ambassadors at each university in order to raise awareness of the website and promote the service to students so that they can be better informed when choosing their rental property."

RateMyUniHouse has so far gathered almost 40 properties onto the website and many reviews, with founders hoping to reach 100 properties over summer.

Miss Annison and her team have focused on growing their user base and building experience and contacts, and so far have been awarded a place on WebSummit’s alpha start programme, the biggest tech start-up conference in Europe, where they will be exhibiting to more than 40,000 attendees as well as securing funding through winning ‘Most Robust Business Plan’ in the Plan ENVY competition at the University of York.

Miss Annison has also attended a four day business bootcamp at York St John University in which she came second in a pitching competition and received outstanding praise and support for the business.

She said: "It’s been encouraging to see how many students are looking to engage with the site and leave a review and we know many more will use the site when searching for properties at the beginning of the academic year in 2015."