EPCs in 2028 to include existing tenancies?

Reply to the comment left by Andrew57 at 30/11/2022 - 10:16
I think in our case we are going to have to remove the tenants to comply with EPC requirements and start again with new tenants unless the EPC requirements change. So one of the costs many of us are going to have to factor in is probably going to be an extended void period when you are receiving no rent but still paying bills including finance costs. Ultimately you'll have to recover that loss and the other costs in higher rents.

What I'm not clear about on upgrading your EPC to meet current requirements is which of the costs are revenue expenditure, i.e. those that you can offset against your rents; and which are going to be treated by HMRC as capital expenditure that you can only use to offset against your capital gains tax bill when you eventually sell.

Does anybody know the answer to this question?

Which EPC upgrade expenses are revenue expenditureand which are capital expenditure?

Reply to the comment left by Glyn Jenkins at 30/11/2022 - 17:17
I don't know. But the EPC system wasn't fit for purpose 10 years ago, and it may not be fit for purpose 10 years from now unless we think about the system now.

Does anybody know the answer on the tax treatment of expenses incurred to meet EPC requirements?

Reply to the comment left by Tim Rogers at 28/11/2022 - 18:17
With the current EPC system there would be no point in a landlord incurring the extra expense of a battery system with solar panels. The solar panels on their own will likely achieve the same benefit for the landlord at much lower cost.

Reply to the comment left by Smiffy at 30/11/2022 - 07:44
BRE publish the methodology and a lot of the details are available online. https://bregroup.com/sap/standard-assessment-procedure-sap-2012/

However, to do what you suggest will not be easy and will probably require specialist expertise to operate due to the multitude of if and buts in the assessment process. On the positive side, any good domestic EPC assessor should be able to complete this modelling for you to help you decide how to improve the property to meet MEES in the most efficient manner.

Reply to the comment left by Tim Rogers at 28/11/2022 - 18:17
Having solar panels is about getting a tick in a box and nothing to do with payback periods or even efficiency. I don't think storage batteries figures in EPCs as yet.
I've a property were all of the easy upgrades have been done so it's now the biggies. A minimal solar panel installation on a north facing roof is enough to get me a tick in the box and move the property from a D to a C (with a bit of leeway). Cost ~£5k, tenants remain in situ.

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 02/12/2022 - 10:15
Really? Even on a north-facing roof? Looking at what it would take for me to move from C to D looks like £20K-£30K worth of expenditure.

Reply to the comment left by Smiffy at 30/11/2022 - 07:44
Hello- You need to be qualified to use SAP calculation software- that is used to calculate new build properties- prior being built or RDSAP for any properties built before 2008 - RDSAP is what is used to complete your EPC calculations and are legal documents once issued by the assessor.
I hope this helps. Cost to become an Energy assessor is around £1800.
All submitted energy assessments are audited for accuracy.

EPC testing is another one of those made up jobs. The guys using the software just fill in the boxes and press the button.
I had an EPC done a year ago. The guy came out and told me that it was EPC D. I asked him how it could be D when it had been tested when EPC first started and it was a C then and had since had been dry lined, loft insulation, low energy bulbs and a new boiler with thermostats. He initially tried to tell me that the property hadn't been tested before until I brought up the original certificate on my phone. He then went in, came straight back out and told me that he noticed one bulb was not low energy, changed this on the software and the result EPC C. No degree needed for that.

Reply to the comment left by Andrew57 at 04/12/2022 - 15:55
That's one of the difficulties with box-ticking. The whole exercise is just about trying to look good and it has very little to do with a genuine assessment of energy efficiency, tackling climate change or providing better properties for tenants.

If a property is safe and doesn't suffer from damp but you have to go to all the work and disruption of dry-lining a property, insulating the roof or the loft and maybe installing photo-voltaics to move up a band just to tick a box, tenants are going to trade the promise of lower energy bills for the certainty of higher rents.

The truth is that although the idea of using the EPC system to bash landlords is to make somebody somewhere look good, if you break the surface of EPC testing there's a very bad smell about it.

If the government do decide to follow through this ridiculous ill thought out 'plan', I shall be looking for exemption as I have Grade 2 listed properties. From what I can see/read to date, this does not actually mean automatic exemption though.

I get the impression I need to pay for a 'specialist' to write a report to state that for example, any internal or external insulation on such a solid wall building will prove to be actually detrimental to the building (in terms not just of visual impact but the potential for trapping damp etc). Is this correct?