EPC ratings drive rental values as industry body urges realistic targets

If the government actually wanted landlords to increase the EPC of their property, they should start by making it tax deductable, Over the years I’ve got all of our houses to a C except 1, This one will be sold to a firt time buyer or owner, so it will never meet the governments proposal.

Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 06/05/2026 – 20:15
My concern would be is once if you now have a “C” this government will move the goalposts and it will become the new “D”.

This starmer milliband government like the previous Sunak and gove government are out to destroy the private rental sector and strip all landlords of what little cash and equity they had.
Bad tenants are now fully empowered to destroy and vandalise private landlords property without any risk of getting in trouble and being made to pay.
Quite often landlords will pay a bad tenant to leave thus druggie tenants know that by trashing a privately owned property they’ll get rewarded with a handsome payout to leave. Best things any UK landlords can do is sell up and make sure that their money gets invested overseas outside of both the UK and EU.

Meanwhile the government are silent on particularly the USA and Israel blowing up oil Wells, and carpet bombing. Would love to see an analysis of the environmental impact of one oil well set alight vs the government’s epc targets.

All a con. Priorities are corrupt.

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 06/05/2026 – 18:39
The problem of doing nothing is that I don’t think a BTL mortgage company will lend on it if below a C

My 5 year fixed runs out summer of 2027 and I’m a D, I don’t think I will be able to remortgage as a new fixed deal will take me past the 2028 deadline (for new tenancies)

EPC`s are known to be wildly inaccurate. Fitting a couple of low energy bulbs can alter a rating from D to C, that`s so arbitrary as to degrade the value of the energy check. As with many govt. initiatives they don`t realise there`s too few technicians/materials to make useful changes. It`s a smoke screen that tenants are falling for now that energy is outrageously expensive.

Reply to the comment left by David at 06/05/2026 – 10:46
You’ve all heard of inflation. And it doesn’t matter where you are, an imbalance of supply and demand will cause market rents to rise….it’s the same for example in America as it is here:

https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/rent-house-prices-and-demographics

Elements of the Renters Rights Act and punishing non-incorporated landlords via the tax system both make rent inflation worse. Stopping tenants from renting band D properties would also limit supply.

You’ve heard of Stagflation:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stagflation.asp

The current government’s policies are stagflationary. They result in low growth, rising unemployment and rising interest rates. We all pay the price and feel the pain of their left-wing ideologies and empty promises. Our tenants feel the pain when the rising interest rates have to be passed on as higher rents because landlords aren’t permitted to offset finance costs against tax, and passed on as early as possible because of new limitations imposed by the Renters Rights Act. A competent government would have reversed the policy of landlords being unable to offset finance costs against rents, especially given the provisions of its Renters Rights Act that will drive up market rents. But then, this government isn’t competent.

And unless they change them, with the government’s current EPC policies what we are going to see is Edflation:

https://www.energylivenews.com/2026/04/21/miliband-doubles-down-on-net-zero/

On top of inflation and stagflation we have Ed’s anti-market-ideology “doubling-down” on us and inflicting more pain as Edflation.

But democracy is messy and this is what happens when the electorate elects people who don’t know what they are doing. Democracy is better than the alternative…but careful what you vote for.

The current government isn’t a disappointment to me because I already had low expectations of them and didn’t vote for them. Anybody old enough to have experienced a few labour governments will have understood that hardly any labour politicians have any experience of business and despite labour’s hollow promise to grow the economy, what we would actually be heading for is a sluggish, low-growth economy that would be insufficiently resilient to withstand external shocks. But what a great tragedy it is that on the day when we have widespread local elections across England there isn’t a party out there that is genuinely ‘green’ and understands how to implement sustainable policies. You’d have thought that with Ed’s A-level in physics he might have been capable of understanding that we can’t transport the power from the windmills in the North Sea to where it’s needed, and we also don’t have the capacity to store it. You’d also have thought that in order to implement a policy in the REAL WORLD you’d have to look hard at the tax system to ensure that the market could deliver it. Was he competent?…..apparently not.

If there’s a glimmer of hope out there in the local elections it will be a party or leader that doesn’t follow the Edflation dogma and isn’t talking about rent controls.

Reply to the comment left by Billy Gunn at 06/05/2026 – 22:40
I rearranged a BTL mortgage on a band D property last year, the mortgage company didn’t ask either about the EPC rating or any plans to improve it.

We’ve had governments tell us that we won’t be able to rent out Band D properties before.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/05/2026 – 13:26
Perfectly explained and the glimmer of hope wont come from anyone in this Marxist government.Let’s all pray Starmer does hang on rather than the thought of a Rayner, Burnham and Polanski leaderships.Better still a general election now.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/05/2026 – 13:36
It depends on the fixed term length

I read last year that some BTL already pulled there 5 year deals for properties below EPC C when the proposals were all tenancies need to be C by 2028

Also remember it’s not been made law yet, it’s still just a proposal, if it was made law then I would presume the mortgage companies would not lend on D and below