10:05 AM, 14th February 2025, About A day ago 22
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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
PH
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Sign Up19:44 PM, 14th February 2025, About 18 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Simon Williams at 14/02/2025 - 15:19
The fact still remains that immediately a C expires it becomes illegal unless the new metrics are met which is highly unlikely. This is absolutely absurd and it will force thousands of tenants out of their perfectly good homes. Asking LL to improve from e to d is understandable but going from e to c is yet another pre-determined tactic to force many LL out relatively quickly.
Judith Wordsworth
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Sign Up8:49 AM, 15th February 2025, About 5 hours ago
Reply to the comment left by Wendy Whittaker-Large at 14/02/2025 - 19:04
I am one of the drovees after some 30+ years. I only rented to those on benefits, the properties were well maintained, when tenants said jump I asked how high, charged reasonable rents.
I saw some tenants trash properties, not pay their rent, subjected to verbal abuse and threatened with physical abuse, a lack of support from LAs with Landlord Licensing Schemes and most tenants having material goods that I couldn’t afford.
The exit writing on the wall was the Renters Reform Bill. I will not have to suffer the Renters RIGHTS Act as will be out of the PRS by then. Thank
My daughter wants nothing to do with landording. Won’t even consider a lodger- she can’t face the stress even if it would help her pay the bills.
I have never joined the NRLA. It’s not a landlords union, it’s a money making business, monies made from landlords annual fees and expensive peacemeal courses to pay salaries and make profit for the owners. It’s not a way to avoid having to learn and understand the obligations and responsibilities of the business.
As I said a few years ago, tent cities here we come.
Will landlords work together to make Governments see sense? Doubt it. We have clout but sadly not the will to use it. Probably too late unless EVERY landlord threatens to or does serve a s21 on the same day with the same expiry date. 4.7 million PRS tenants under the threat of homelessness on the same day shouting/screaming/crying would force the Government to stop and listen and rethink.
The courts will be instructed say the Government by them — actually even more worrying and scary than the loss of the PRS - to carry out hardship tests for s8 Ground 1.