Landlords face potential £20bn bill to meet EPC C standards

Landlords face potential £20bn bill to meet EPC C standards

0:02 AM, 22nd November 2024, About a month ago 12

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Landlords in England could face a £20bn bill to upgrade their properties to meet EPC C standards by 2030. Although, there will be a general election between now and then.

The claim by energy-efficiency platform epIMS, says currently more than half of properties in the private rented sector (50.1%) have an EPC rating below C.

Government figures estimate the average cost of upgrading a property to an EPC rating of C in England at £8,000, meaning landlords will need to spend an estimated total of £19.8 billion to bring all substandard properties up to the required standard.

London landlords face the largest bill to upgrade their properties

Landlords in London face the largest bill to upgrade their properties to meet EPC C standards.

According to epIMS, the capital has 1.2 million private rental properties, more than double the number found in any other region.

Despite having the nation’s lowest proportion of properties with an EPC rating below C (44.6%), landlords in the capital still face a total upgrade bill of £4.7 billion, based on an average upgrade cost of £9,000 per property.

The second-largest bill facing landlords is in the West Midlands, where the average cost of upgrading a rental property to a C rating is £8,148. This means a total of £2.2bn is needed to bring all substandard properties in the region up to the required standard.

A major concern for landlords

Craig Cooper, chief operating officer of epIMS, warns that Ed Miliband’s plan to bring all rental properties up to an EPC C standard is a major concern for landlords.

He said: “Labour has proposed a deadline of 2030 for all landlords to bring their rental properties up to a minimum EPC rating of C. This is an ambitious plan that is yet to be enshrined in law, but it shows clear intent from the government which means a legal minimum rating is almost certainly going to be introduced at some point in the near future.

“This will understandably be a concern for landlords, especially with the government suggesting that the average cost of completing the required upgrades is around £8,000 per property.”

The South East would require £2.1bn to upgrade all sub-C properties, followed by the North West (£2.1bn), East Midlands (£2bn), East of England (£2bn), South West (£1.7bn), and Yorkshire & Humber (£1.5bn).

Landlords in the North East are facing the smallest upgrade bill of £517 million due to just 103,394 properties having an EPC rating below C and the region’s lowest average upgrade bill of £5,000 per property.


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John Tidswell

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9:43 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

There will be another general election before 2030 coupled with the fact the EPC rating needs a total overhaul, we not be doing anything prior to 2030

NewYorkie

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10:03 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

Many, many more landlords won't be worrying about this nonsense by 2030, and renters will be so desperate to find somewhere to live, the EPC rating will be the least of their concerns.

Cider Drinker

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10:06 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

I hope to have sold up before 2030 despite most if my properties already meeting EPC Rating C.

Labour promised greener energy through Great British Energy.

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔-𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎 ℎ𝑢𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑡ℎ, 𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡-𝑜𝑓-𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑏𝑦 2030 𝑖𝑠 𝐿𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑟’𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.

I’m not sure that increasing the minimum EPC Rating will save the planet, when the West continues to sponsor death and destruction around the world.

Reluctant Landlord

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10:45 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑏𝑦 2030 𝑖𝑠 𝐿𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑟’𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.

I think the country's mission will be to get them out way before then.....

Peter Collard

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10:50 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

Cost me 3k to move from D to C. Boiler, in need of changing anyway, loft insulation and all led lights did the trick. Already double glazed. My backup was to install a high efficiency gas fire as secondary heating as EPC assumes electric otherwise

Andy

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11:18 AM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

I view the Gov's proposals targeting landlords to raise EPC as largely vacuous and unworkable.
More widely, a major problem with 'green' energy is the how inefficient it is and will always be so. Nuclear is the only answer to achieve a sustainable and economically realistic solution, not to mention bolstering the UK's energy independence. However, I know this would never be accepted as a solution by the climate alarmists. I'm still invested in oil and natural gas and expect to see healthy returns over the coming years.

NewYorkie

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15:49 PM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Andy at 22/11/2024 - 11:18
My investment in the Guinness Global Energy Fund is up 61%.

My IFA still asked why I wasn't interested in ESG funds... Go woke, go broke!

Apparently, we have the Rolls Royce SMNR technology available, and there was a lot of talk about them a while back. Why isn't Labour really pushing ahead with it?

Rosalind Warner

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17:54 PM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

The use of an EPC rating of C having to be achieved before a property can be offered for letting needs to be legally challenged on two grounds:

1. If C is the minimum rating regarded as satisfactory for a minimum living standard then it should be required for ALL property whether let or owner occupied otherwise it is unreasonable discrimination against those letting property in the PRS.

2. Back in the noughties the government of the day introduced a green levy on the price of energy to raise funds for the development of greener energy to help towards the reduction of global warming. Currently, all of the green levy is applied to electricity prices only which is a the primary reason why electricity is 4x as expensive compared to gas even though gas, with it's co2 emissions, is the energy that the government really wants to phase out. Because a large part of the EPC rating of a property is based on the cost of heating the property, this unfairly greatly disadvantages anyone with an all electric property.

If the EPC rating is going to be used as a criteria in letting legislation then there should be an adjustment of the green levy to include gas pricing as well so as to reduce the huge disparity that currently exists between gas and electricity costs.

Peter Merrick

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22:11 PM, 22nd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

So what are they going to do when we get to 2030 and there are still thousands of rental properties below C for various reasons, including that the landlord simply doesn't have the money because profits have been decimated by govt policy on the assumption that we are all millionaires drowning in excess cash? Or the labour and materials are not available in sufficient quantities to do all the necessary insulation, for example?
I'll be 62 by then anyway, so I'll probably just sell off any that can't reasonably be upgraded when tenants leave, and keep any that are already C or better.

Julie

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1:16 AM, 23rd November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Andy at 22/11/2024 - 11:18
I love to see someone talking SENSE! Thank you 🙂

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