Call to impose EPC rules on landlords as tenants ration energy

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 22/09/2025 – 05:25
On “Ed, every time you talk, you make more tenants homeless….” that’s true. Ed isn’t doing anything positive either for tenants or for climate change.

Angela Rayner never was going to “build 1.5 million homes” to stop people becoming homeless and Steve Reed isn’t going to do it either: But if the Renters Reform Bill goes ahead in its present form, that will also mean that there will be a greater proportion of tenants out there who will too high risk to house in the PRS.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 22/09/2025 – 10:33
NRLA have just sent a survey asking that question. “Do you currently rent to ……..” – “Would you rent to ………”. The list included people with pets, people with bad credit history, people on benefits, families with children, etc etc. can’t remember them all. “Do you currently rent to…” Also had in the list “people with non UK passports.
They missed one out. Because I would not rent to someone who did not have a landlord reference. I was careful before but I’m more careful now. Last year a tenant who appeared good in everyway apart from her residential status. She had moved every 3 months for the past year so that was a definite no for me.

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 22/09/2025 – 10:42
And that’s the REAL difficulty with the Renters Reform Bill: For many of us, people who we previously used to rent houses out to are going to become too high risk to house. My best ever tenant (from the days before we used to have to check rights of residency) was probably an illegal immigrant or ‘overstayer’. Still my best ever tenant. That was in the days when I used to rent out to social housing tenants; I don’t do it any more as the risk is too high, and things are about to get worse.

There may be no choice other than to put migrants into properties in the PRS because it’s so expensive to put them anywhere else. But because the budget for housing those migrants is low, it’s likely they will be housed in areas where there is poverty and already pressure on social housing. I doubt that Serco, Clearspring or Mears care whether the property is band D, or have any need to. And if they were stuck in a hotel, I doubt that their tenants would care either.

But what’s going to happen if the RRB goes ahead in its present form is that even more people who can’t get accommodation are going to be rubbing up against people who’ve been housed by the Home Office. And that’s going to cause even more tension than there is now.

Implementing the Renters Reform Bill in its present form and stopping landlords from renting out properties below band C is a really stupid thing to do.

…all part is of Starmers plan to cause civil unrest so tha the can invoke the Civil Contingencies Act, declare marshal law and most importantly for Starmer cancel elections (bc he knows he’ll lose).

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 22/09/2025 – 11:05
I’m likely to believe anything now because the whole RRB is just heading for disaster. It just seems a step towards us having no control over our own properties anymore or who we let them to. They will probably set a rent figure which we will have to abide by soon. Everyone will have to charge the same rent!!!!

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 22/09/2025 – 11:05
I don’t know about any of that.

What I do know is that twenty years ago I used to house social housing tenants. Then I found out that if the social housing tenant wasn’t eligible for benefits, the council could come and get money back off me. So I continued to house them for a while but only if the social housing tenant paid me DIRECTLY. And then I found out that even if the social housing tenant pays me directly, the council can STILL try and get the money back off me.

But as a landlord I have no way of checking whether a tenant is or is not entitled to any kind of benefits. So now, I just don’t ever house social housing tenants.

If the Renters Reform Bill comes in in its present form there is going to be a much wider pool of people who are just too risky to house in the PRS. For those landlords who can do it and who aren’t exiting the market it will probably make more sense to rent to a company that guarantees their rent. Now if Serco, Mears, Clearspring or any other company were also able to house our own homeless and do a better job than your local council it might not be a bad thing to let them do it. As far as I know they will consider any property, even if it’s below band C.

If the government wants to make things better then they could take away the burden of identifying whether the tenant is eligible for benefits from the landlord. At the moment the government is undermining social cohesion, fuelling right-wing extremism, and about to make things even worse by introducing the RRB.

Taking a tenant’s freedom to rent a band D, E or F property away is a stupid thing to do on a lot of levels.

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 22/09/2025 – 10:42
I have one remaining rental, and had to re-let it last month (don’t ask!). But I took the opportunity to increase the rent to just above the market norm (after 7 years). I had plenty of applicants and my agent recommended one with good work references, but didn’t include her previous landlord. The referencing company they used (Homelet) didn’t include that, which I believe is a big risk for prospective landlords, and I said I would not accept a new tenant without one. My agent obtained the reference direct from her, and the good news is she was paying £500pm more rent, so affordability isn’t a problem.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 22/09/2025 – 11:15
I agree. My brother who has always rented to people on benefits and faced the same preposterous problems. I have therefore never rented to anyone on benefits because I can not take the risk

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 22/09/2025 – 11:24
As I’ve said, I used to house social housing tenants twenty years ago, but had to stop because the risk was too high. And the Renters Reform Bill will make the situation even worse, as the government knows because it did not publish the results of its Justice Impact Test. This is a really dangerous and stupid position to be in when the Home Office is busy mopping up available cheap accommodation to house economic migrants in parts of the country where there is poverty and poor housing supply.

The government should make it EASIER to house our domestic homeless and those on benefits: Not make it harder than housing an asylum seeker or economic migrant. It isn’t the policy of housing asylum seekers in non-hotel accommodation that’s the big problem…it’s the Renters Reform Bill which is a disaster no longer waiting to happen but about to happen.

Obliging Band C+ just makes the situation worse.

Stopping tenants from having the freedom of choice to live in band EPC D, E or F properties has nothing to do with living in a free society. In a free and just society, if the EPC system was meaningful, then a Band A property would rent for much more than a Band D property and the market would sort the problem out.

But its not a free and just society if a tenant can’t rent a band D property. And it’s also not a free and just society if a landlord is penalised for raising finance, e.g. to improve an EPC rating, if not renting out via a limited company.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at <a href="22/09/2025″ rel=”ugc”>https://www.property118.com/call-to-impose-epc-rules-on-landlords-as-tenants-ration-energy/comment-page-8/#comment-197133“>22/09/2025 – 18:19I remember when I and my family rented 15 years ago I went for somewhere cheap and basic because I didn’t want to spend a lot on rent. Our flats were also cheap and basic because I knew a lot of people would prefer to keep their money in their pockets rather than spend it on rent and I myself struggled when I was in my 20’s affording to rent on my own. It worked. We’ve now refurbished our properties which has been full-time work for the past few years because of the Renters Rights Bill and our rents are now over 250-350 more per flat pcm. I don’t think anyone’s benefitted from that. It’s going to take years to get our refurb money back and now I have to restrict myself to tenants on much higher salaries.