10:05 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago 21
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It’s been a hectic week for landlords with lots of EPC news – a consultation to bring in EPCs for new tenancies by 2028, all tenancies to have a new EPC by 2030 – all the while there’s a consultation about what EPC assessors will actually measure.
You can’t make this up – and the government is urging landlords to upgrade properties now in time for the new rules.
Do they not join the dots up and realise we could spend thousands to meet the EPC C rating – and then have the EPC criteria change so we no longer meet it?
We can’t commit while the work done by assessors varies so much.
And then we have The Property Institute saying that the EPC plans don’t consider high rise building and freeholder issues. They are right, they don’t. It’s unbelievable.
Will the EPC system become a national scandal as it turns into a cataclysmic event for the PRS?
Most of us are geared up for the expense and distraction of the Renters’ Rights Bill, especially with periodic tenancies and struggling with evictions. But with this EPC saga, I’m not so sure that lots of landlords will simply call it a day.
Spending up to £15,000 on a £150,000 property just to gain a few EPC points and achieve a C rating is financially ludicrous. It’s simply not viable.
I can’t be the only one fed up with being demonised as ‘lazy, greedy and uncaring’ by the government, Generation Rent and the media. Remember, Two-tier doesn’t believe that being a landlord is work.
One of my landlord mates has already said he won’t sacrifice a year or two of rental income to achieve a C rating. And Generation Rent, that’s the turnover, not the profit.
Has a tenant EVER asked to see a landlord’s EPC? I’m guessing not.
I reckon by 2029 – whether this Labour shower of chancers is still in power or not – many more landlords will be selling up.
I’m starting to understand that this Labour government wants small landlords out of the PRS – it’s nothing but the politics of envy and class-warfare mentality. Despite most small landlords having to graft to get through life and probably being no better off than the tenants they house!
While many landlords are prepared for the challenges of the Renters’ Rights Bill, the EPC debacle feels like the straw that could break the camel’s back.
It’s a classic case of good intentions colliding with real-world complexities.
It doesn’t help landlords that the NRLA is claiming that the Renters’ Rights Bill will fail without better enforcement. This is an organisation that represents landlords wanting councils to be better financed to crack down on landlords. Inevitably, they will continue targeting decent landlords.
Government policymaking is a nuanced act in trying to find compromise but all I see is a growing disconnect between government policy and the realities faced by landlords AND tenants.
It doesn’t help that no one in government appears to have had a proper job or real-world experience in doing anything constructive.
The Renters’ Rights Bill claims to improve tenant protections, but it risks creating new issues and building on old problems.
I get why people think having tighter eviction rules will protect tenants, but these will backfire and evictions will carry on. As I have previously noted, landlords will switch to Section 8 possessions, so we must give a reason.
As a result, rented housing supply will fall, and rents will rise. It’s not really a difficult formula to understand, is it?
Landlord investment confidence in the PRS is waning which not only fuels the housing shortage but also undermines the availability of stable, long-term rentals.
The Labour government must engage with landlords and listen to our concerns so we can create a solution that delivers PRS stability, prevents big rent rises to pay for the EPC work and other nonsense under the new Bill.
Time is running out and we can’t go on ignoring the realities of the PRS because not doing so will see the market collapsing – leaving tenants with nowhere to live and landlords feeling very much like the postmasters in the Post Office scandal.
I fully expect rent controls to be the next attack on the PRS – surely, that would be the final nail in its coffin.
It’s utterly disheartening for those of us who have played by the rules, paid our taxes, and haven’t relied on handouts to see our efforts undermined by such short-sighted diabolical policies.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
Cider Drinker
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Sign Up10:06 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
The final nail has already been struck. They are now hammering stakes through the coffin to make sure the PRS is dead.
Landlords should be selling their least energy efficient properties. Ideally with vacant possession. They should sell to local families with a long history of living in the area.
EPC changes will improve the PRS’s average but only because poor quality housing will be offloaded to owner-occupiers.
If the rules come in, many PRS properties will be virtually worthless. At least the pensioners will be able to warm their hands on the fire sale. 🙂
Derek t
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Sign Up10:22 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
I have a max of three more years as a landlord will be selling property as it becomes vacant and have mortgages ending in 3 years which need to be repaid don’t think our accounts will support remortgages not that I want to stay in the game anyway so tenants that have been with us 10 years or more will be looking for somewhere else to live due to all this hammering the landlord.
Would sell everything tomorrow if I could. Epc are a joke and totally not worth the paper they are printed on.
A Reader
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Sign Up10:30 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
Agree - the PRS has been decimated by successive govts with current Labour doing the last boot kicking. The housing crisis is of govts own making with selling social housing stock, not replacing it, what exists can be badly maintained due to 'lack of funds' from failing councils and very poor migration control over atleast a decade. It was the PRS that housed tenants that were the responisbility of the councils to house. But of course it is better and easier to divert attention of their incompetence by scapegoating PRS landlords and using the likes of Shelter, Big Issue and Generation Rent as ill informed loud speakers rather than sort out their own dire catastrophic mess. And also where are build to rent developers and new house builds that they are all thinking will magically appear after there is no PRS? Also NRLA leader Ben Cheadle doesnt help the PRS cause - I have long had suspicions of him potentially being a govt plant - his experience being - worked for a deposit mgmt company and managing a few student lets - no transparency or vote by members of him getting the job. Just seemed to slip in by the back door when NLA merged with RLA a few years ago. I cringe when he speaks up he seems so clueless and definitely seems to run the NRLA without listening to or serving the needs of its members.
Philip Grayson
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Sign Up10:32 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 14/02/2025 - 10:06
They should be selling their properties to the highest bidder. That's how the property market works.
We already see this encroaching into renting: we cannot descriminate on who we rent to (such as "no pets", "no socials", "no out-of-areas".)
The risks to private property ownership are growing and every time we constrain how a private owner deals with their property we are diminishing the concept of private property rights.
Madalena Penny
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Sign Up10:39 AM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
As a domestic energy assessor, I can also confirm that the present EPC software that creates the properties EPC rating has not been updated to the installation of Air Source Heat Pumps. I've come across a number of landlords who are left with empty properties after having a heat pump installed as the Rdsap software that creates the EPC rating penalises heat pumps and reduces any rating, as it still favours gas boilers. Many ratings have gone from an E to an F due to the outdated software. The new platform should have been introduced last year, but we are still waiting for it.
Dino Saw
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Sign Up10:49 AM, 14th February 2025, About 17 hours ago
So am I right in thinking if you have a HMO and you have a tenant move in each day for a week that you need to get 5 EPCs done one for each tenant?
Or if you have 2 tenants move in on same day you need 2 EPCs one for each tenant?
Anyone got any clarity on this situation?
Desert Rat
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Sign Up11:31 AM, 14th February 2025, About 17 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by A Reader at 14/02/2025 - 10:30
Thankfully, at the moment selling the property is considered acceptable grounds.
Been stressing about EPC's and what to do with my last few houses that are not currently a C have been making me ill.
Not anymore,
I've now decided that I'll just sell the ones that don't make a C and the government can deal with finding homes for the tenants that they have made homeless.
I've owned the houses for less than 10 years so the capital gains tax is not going to be that bad. better than paying capital gains and 40% inheritance tax.
I don't have any mortgages to worry about
There are already councils begging PRS landlords to take people off their hands. Can you imagine how bad its going to be in 2030?
By then I'll be retired and will enjoy my life sitting on a beach sipping a cocktail and spending the money I got from selling the houses to a first time buyer and laughing at all of the councils becoming bankrupt.
They offer no help to landlords, so I have no reason to feel bad for them. Let them all fail.
Also, if I don't have money or assets to sell before I die will the government will have to pay for my care in a retirement home?
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up11:45 AM, 14th February 2025, About 17 hours ago
Proper thick aren't they this Labour Govt-Well Tories too.
Do they not join the dots up and realise we could spend thousands to meet the EPC C rating – and then have the EPC criteria change so we no longer meet it?
Desert Rat
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Sign Up12:04 PM, 14th February 2025, About 16 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 14/02/2025 - 11:45
Mick, that is so true and is the reason I have stopped caring. We will never be able to please them.
I've already done all of the sensible upgrades, even before EPC C was mentioned.
I'm not spending 3 years worth of rental income to meet their stupid demands so they can change it a year later and have me pay out more money.
They can pay to house the tenants that they have forced me to evict.
Honestly, I've had enough of their Bull s**t. I'll make sure to let tenants know why they are being evicted
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up12:08 PM, 14th February 2025, About 16 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 14/02/2025 - 12:04
That's the thing, the changes, we do a good job according to the rules at the time, set it up for next 10 years, they change the rules, but we by then have got the tenant set up. We can't just change the tenant according to new rules without inflicting damage on them.