650,000 UK HMOs. Zero standardised operations.
That changes now.
650,000
LICENSED UK HMOs
£78BN
SECTOR VALUE
100%
LANDLORDS OPEN TO ADOPTION
SECTION 01 — THE PROBLEM
What’s actually happening
A tenant reports a leak. An informal message. It gets lost, the landlord wasn’t bothered. The next day, water starts leaking from the power plugs. Not a story. A true incident. This is how UK shared housing runs. A 650,000-property sector, worth £78 billion, managed on chat threads, unanswered messages, and tenants chasing into silence. I know it very well. Because I am living inside one.
SECTION 02 — LIVED EXPERIENCE
Four tenancies. The same failure, every time.
Four shared properties in Newcastle. Stays with friends in Manchester and London. Across agency-managed, private, and portfolio landlords. The pattern was identical:
01
Mould blamed on tenants and cats.
02
A leaking sewer no one repaired.
03
£2,000 lost to faulty heating equipment — still affecting my credit score today.
04
An attempted break-in to a tenant’s room. Door forced.
05
A heating system that smelled like rotten eggs. Fire service called.
06
A broken fence fixed with the broken pieces, six times over.
The buildings weren’t broken. The operating systems were. No reporting. No triage. No timelines. No proof of completion. No consequence for delay.
SECTION 03 — THE SHIFT
Ships don’t run on goodwill. Neither should homes.
Before I built Rasalhague, I served in the merchant navy as a Navigating Officer on oil tankers. Ships don’t stay safe because crews try harder. They stay safe because the systems around them are deterministic, audited, and impossible to drift from. Every hazard classified. Every classification carries a defined response time. Every action leaves a record. The same discipline that runs an oil tanker can run an HMO. That’s what Rasalhague is.
SECTION 04 — WHAT IT IS
The operational governance layer for UK shared housing.
Tenants report through structured inputs. Every issue is classified deterministically not by judgement, not by mood. Priority is assigned by the system. Response timeframes are defined, not negotiated. Closure requires evidence. The works log is append-only. It cannot be edited. No WhatsApp. No “we’ll get to it.” No mould blamed on the cats.
SECTION 05 — BUILT ON EVIDENCE
This isn’t an opinion. It’s a structural fix.
The case for Rasalhague is independently validated by peer-reviewed academic research on both sides of the shared-housing reality tenant experience and landlord operation from two independent UK university studies. The platform is built against current UK housing health and safety standards, and aligned with the regulatory direction of UK private rented sector reform. When institutional accountability exists student accommodation, regulated landlord housing the operational picture improves. For everyone else, there is no system. Until now.
SECTION 06 — WHO IT’S FOR
Built for the operators who want to do this properly.
01
HMO landlords, from a three-bed share to a thirty-room portfolio
02
Portfolio managers handling multiple properties
03
Estate and management companies running shared living at scale
UK-only at launch. HMO-only at this stage. If you run shared housing and you want a system, not a chat thread, Rasalhague is for you.
SECTION 07 — FOUNDER
Why I’m building this
I’m Hitesh Siwach. Before Rasalhague, I served as a Navigating Officer on oil tankers, working under the operational safety frameworks that shaped how I think about high-stakes systems. I came ashore. I lived inside the operational failure mode of UK shared housing for over two years. Rasalhague is what would have changed every one of those tenancies.
SECTION 08 — BE THE FIRST TO KNOW
Be the first to know.
The UK shared housing sector has been operating without a system for decades. We’re building it. If you’re an HMO landlord, an operator, a portfolio manager, or just someone who wants to see this fixed, leave your email below. You’ll hear from us when we open.