10:51 AM, 27th September 2024, About 3 hours ago 6
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While landlords are distracted by the nonsense that is the Renters’ Rights Bill, the biggest elephant in the room is a pledge for PRS homes to meet an EPC minimum rating of C.
Ed Miliband, the so-called (big fat) net zero minister, claims that rented homes that don’t meet this criteria will be banned from the PRS.
Really? Just the PRS and not social housing or owner-occupier homes?
It now turns out that the ‘consultation’ will cover social housing but I’m saying right now that the sheer cost of upgrading social homes will make this a non-starter.
The big fear, I suspect, is that Labour really doesn’t understand economics, landlords or the PRS.
There’s a frightening prospect looming and until we know what the ceiling on the upgrade spend is, I’m guessing more landlords will quit.
For landlords that have the equity then selling up now before the claimed Capital Gains Tax rise comes in makes sense.
It also makes sense to bail out now before the RRB becomes law and we get lumbered with tenants who don’t want to leave. Or pay rent.
And if your property needs a fortune spent on it to save the tenant a couple of quid per month then, yes, selling up is the right thing to do.
That’s three very painful assaults on landlords now underway and for those who have been in the sector for years, this is the thanks you get.
We have always been the bad guys, having invested in providing a home for tenants when investment was needed.
But guess what Labour? Investment is still needed but you’re frightening the investors away.
There will, undoubtedly, be a long-term potential for investing but I’d say it’s now for those who are buying with cash or have low LTV BTL mortgages.
For everyone else, there’s a reckoning coming, and you’ll need to get your calculator out now to see what 2025 will look like.
So, my big issue is this: We don’t discuss the fact that the UK pumps out around 1% of global emissions – and what is the PRS’ share of that?
Are we really as a country prepared to sacrifice half the PRS for a Labour Party soundbite?
For complying with a nonsense target that won’t make a jot of difference to global warming? Not a jot! Nada.
Without China and India on board, nothing will change. If you want change, add tariffs to imported goods so they have to make a change.
Don’t punish landlords in the mistaken belief that our homes are melting the glaciers, you absolute tools.
While the glaciers will be around in a few years, can the same be said for PRS landlords? I doubt it.
I’m really worried that this is a continuation of the Tory move to shrink the PRS and the number of small landlords.
What other explanation is there?
It doesn’t help when the likes of Miliband say that a lot of the country’s poor are living in ‘cold, draughty homes’ and that many PRS homes are ‘below decent standards’.
Despite this claim, the worst examples of poor quality homes are those provided by councils and social housing associations. We don’t hear MPs having a go at them, do we?
But there is so much wrong with the EPC plan for landlords it must be by design.
It will cost £24bn to upgrade PRS properties to an EPC C rating – but we don’t have the money or the workforce to do it.
The majority of landlords offer decent homes so it’s nonsense to say they are cold and draughty.
That’s a big brush you are painting us with there Mr Miliband.
The EPC grading system is a joke with bizarre ideas of boosting a rating. Wind turbines? Insulated floors? Solar panels?
These are expenses that don’t repay for years – and solar panels have a life of 25 years. So, do we have to do it all again in that timescale?
It’s expensive and as landlords will repeat – tenants always pay for the upgrade with higher rents.
But with fewer homes to rent thanks to Miliband’s barmy EPC notion and Two-Tier Kier’s Renters’ Reform Bill, the writing is on the wall.
For tenants that is, it’s always the tenants.
And it’s a shame that the organisations representing them – Generation Rent and Shelter – are as clueless as our politicians about the impact a sound bite can have.
You have a home to rent and soon many of you won’t.
Give your Labour MP a sound bite of your own when you can’t find anywhere to rent at a price you can afford.
I can give you some ideas but don’t blame us when this fall-out occurs – we’ll be out of it, taxed to the hilt and bruised from the experience, but we’ll be gone.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
Cider Drinker
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Sign Up11:47 AM, 27th September 2024, About 2 hours ago
Average EPC Ratings by tenure (2021 census)…
Owner-occupied 64 (D)
PRS 66 (D)
Social Housing (70 (C)
Clearly, it is owner-occupied homes that need to be targeted first. Many don’t even have an EPC.
The PRS doesn’t rate much better. But why is that?
Firstly, it’s well known that private landlords own a disproportionate percentage of older properties. Secondly, it’s also well known that older properties are more expensive to bring up to modern standards and that doing so may risk creating damp and mould issues.
One way or another, tenants will pay for energy efficiency ‘improvements’. Probably through higher rents.
Private landlords don’t benefit from the massive funds that social landlords can access. For example, a Leeds housing estate (Holtdale) benefitted from £47,000 of tax payers money (that’s per house) to bring the EPC up to an A Rating. That money would have been better spent building new homes for the homeless people of Leeds.
Will £47,000 of public money be made available to private landlords so that similar improvements can be made to the private housing stock? I’ll wait.
Andy
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Sign Up12:05 PM, 27th September 2024, About An hour ago
Hitting the PRS with a requirement to lower carbon emissions is just part of the Gov's claimed wider sustainability commitments. Politicians have to be seen to make what they think are the 'right' noises and economics, science and common sense be damned. So I think EPC targets, or similar, will stay around, but as 2030 looms it will be pushed back, dropped, or morph into something else.
Unfortunately, we don't make much anymore and import a lot of the 'stuff' we consume; it's the consumer who picks up the tariff cost that's inevitably passed on to them.
Steve Rose
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Sign Up12:09 PM, 27th September 2024, About An hour ago
The deadline is 2030, ie after the next general election.
We have still to implement the required legislation relating to the Brexit Agreement agreed 5 years ago. So the chances of this date also being pushed back are high.
Do you honestly think that a new government will sit back while PRS landlords are forced to evict thousands of tenants into the council sector?
Do you honestly think that there won't be extensive government funding to help as the date approaches?
The banding will have to change to reflect the push for electrical heating (at the moment gas gets you a far better rating), why would you do anything until a revised system tells you what your 'true' rating is?
If you spend £10k on your property, do you know how many years it will take you to get that back on higher rental payments?
All of ours are a D, we have increased rents in order to raise the money to carry out any future improvements necessary, but I won't be doing anything for another 4 years.
Ian Narbeth
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Sign Up12:30 PM, 27th September 2024, About 56 minutes ago
Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 27/09/2024 - 12:09@Steve Rose "Do you honestly think that a new government will sit back while PRS landlords are forced to evict thousands of tenants into the council sector?"
Steve, it's worse than that. Unless landlords evict now they won't be able to use s8 to carry out works to upgrade houses. The EPC estimated costs assume a vacant property. How are we supposed to install under floor or internal wall insulation with a family and all their belongings in situ? Many tenants have houses crammed with their belongings so that builders can hardly move and fear a claim by the tenant of damage or theft of the PlayStation etc.
£10,000 (or whatever arbitrary figure is chosen) won't go very far if it costs three times as much to work around the tenant's stuff than if the property is vacant. Furthermore many contractors will refuse to work unless the furniture is cleared.
David
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Sign Up12:50 PM, 27th September 2024, About 35 minutes ago
Global warming ,all nonsense, an agenda by the Elite as the world has been far hotter in the past and the UK's meagre efforts make no sense as China, India and the USA pump out more.Meanwhile this Miliband jets around the world , does that make sense.
Perhaps the politicians will wake up as the streets fill with homeless.
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up13:30 PM, 27th September 2024, Less than a minute ago
Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 27/09/2024 - 12:30
Well said Ian, u echo mine and my tenants words.
Some recent words I'll keep repeating below.
Yes it’s a shame that in 2024, the biggest threat to tenants homes is Govt and Councils and the constant retrospective changes they keep imposing.
We’ll make em EPC A if u like, massive mould and condensation that sometimes hard to undo.
Well these houses weren’t substandard till Govt said EPC D no longer acceptable. Tenants very happy with em and the cheap rent they were.
All my tenants had a choice pay £600pm EPC D or I’ll buy you new build £1000pm EPC A and you’ll save £30pm on your gas bill. By the way the EPC D have already got new boiler windows doors etc.
Sep24
Proper thick he is.
Cold and draughty?
Come and tell that my tenants who's got new boiler, new windows, warm home, but UNFORTUNATELY, still an EPC D cause of the way the flawed system works.
And tell them we know u paying £200pm below market rent and perfectly happy, but if we get u to EPC C (which we know that means you'll have to pay market rent £2400 per year more}, we'll look good to the voters for doing what we say.
And we'll keep quiet about how we constantly retrospectively changing the rules after you've moved in and this causes more landlords to sell, but we'll blame homeless on a local level.