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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Disillusioned Landlord

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19:49 PM, 24th November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

It has been proven time and time again that many UK houses are simply not financially worth moving to an EPC of C for a landlord. It’s ok saying it’s £8/9k to make the changes, but that’s about 5 years profit for me on my houses with the current mortgage situation🤷‍♂️

My only real option is to sell up and let someone else worry about it.

Yet more houses going off the market and yet more of the do gooders being responsible for it.

Phil rosenberg

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10:08 AM, 25th November 2024, About 4 weeks ago

I presume the only way it can work is by saying new tenancies require EPC C. There's no eviction grounds available to remove a tenant because the EPC isn't high enough, so I doubt they can make landlords upgrade homes with existing tenants. This will spread the workload over additional years as tenancies end. So I think the labour shortage is a red herring.

However, it's clear from the EPCs themselves that the payback time is often crazily high. I have an EPC on a 1 bedroom flat recommending internal or external insulation at a cost of £4-14k with an annual saving of £110 per year. That's a 36-127 year payback time, which is clearly ridiculous and in nobody's best interest. To sensibly afford this, I would need to up the rent by around £2k per year.

What this actually means is the end of cheap rentals. It will never be worth doing this work on small cheap homes with cheap rent and the rental sector will be polarised into a mix of nicer, more modern, larger and more expensive homes, combined with HMOs for those who can't afford the larger places. The high yield on HMOs and the reduced cost relative to the capital expenditure of larger homes probably make these the only viable options.

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