PRS homes make energy-efficiency progress as thousands still remain below EPC C

One of mine is below C and I won’t be throwing money at it with the promise it might meet C by a bunch of cowboys. I will sell at a loss and my lovely tenant and family will be on the street. Or can you just get a builder to say it will cost £10,001 and claim exemption?

2029 I foresee will bring a lot of U turns, watering down or exemptions being applied. The reality remains, getting every single PRS let to a C will be impossible.

Liebour know this, its just political blustering.

You only have to see how the ‘plan’ with moving all cars to electric and banning sales of petrol/diesel cars is going to know this is going to be another rollback nearer the time…

Aawabs law in the social sector is causing chaos. Lots of spending on repairs and maintenance, new procedures, staff costs increasing, extra national insurance ….

Councils and HA’s are selling off properties in order to fund it all. Social tenants are in more rent arrears than ever before and yet rent increases are still capped. House building/construction is in recession (look at the latest figures) and yet Raynor is pushing for HA’s to accept homeless referrals from Councils!

Both the private and social housing sector are being hit simultaneously by this pathetic excuse of a government.

As a landlord with four properties—three of which are currently rated a D—I worry most about the absolute lack of standardisation in the current system.
Right now, the assessments rely entirely on flawed software assumptions rather than the physical reality of the building. On our portfolio, the rationale for each D rating is completely arbitrary, and the automated recommendations are both financially ruinous and physically impossible. For example, the system suggested cavity wall insulation for our solid-brick Victorian terrace, and solar panels for another terrace whose roof is completely overshadowed by protected oak trees. Paying thousands for these measures would yield virtually zero benefit for the tenant or the environment, even if we were legally or physically allowed to do them.
This exact absurdity is why I understand the government is actually scrapping the current calculation methodology. Ahead of the October 2030 deadline for a mandatory C rating, they are apparently introducing a completely new Home Energy Model (HEM) on 1 October 2029 specifically to standardise how buildings are assessed.
Surely, until the planned 2029 overhaul actually happens, paying for new certificates under the current “whim of the software” system would be a complete waste of time and money —even for the new landlord database—for existing, long-term tenants? Paying for an assessment under the current, broken software is throwing money down the drain when the entire grading metric is supposedly being replaced in 2029.
For anyone else in the same boat, maybe it’s worth keeping a few key guardrails in mind before panicking or wasting your money on flawed recommendations.
• Maybe hold off on re-testing: Wait until the new HEM system rolls out in late 2029 so your property is actually graded on its real-world fabric rather than an assessor’s software guesswork. (Note: Existing C ratings will remain valid until expiry, so if you have a C, hold onto it).
• Definitely keep every receipt from October 2025: The proposed cost cap is £10,000 per property (or 10% of the property’s value if under £100k). Any qualifying upgrades you pay for from 1 October 2025 onwards count toward that cap.
• If possible we must use the available exemptions: We cannot be forced to do the impossible. Valid exemptions exist for solid walls where insulation isn’t viable, and for third-party/environmental constraints (like Tree Preservation Orders blocking solar).

Reply to the comment left by Denise G at 13/11/2026 – 15:47
Yes all absurd and i will sell off D properties well before new guidelines .However if you can get a builder to quote £10,001 wouldn’t you then be exempt from spending anything? Also if a landlord already has a C which expires shortly after October 2029 and they intend to hold until 2035 or later wouldn’t it be best to get a new assessment before October 2029 using the same assessor or anyone as the assessments will still be based on existing guidelines. They will then be covered for 10 years, rather than risking new guidelines after October 2029 and ending up with a D.

Reply to the comment left by David at 10:30
An offer nobody could refuse. Bearing in mind the 98% failure rate with damp and mould problems of a recent govt scheme for solid wall insulation, landlords will be queuing up to pay a special concessionary sum ‘only’ £9,000 for more of the same on a £90k house so they can carry on being taxed at ever increasing rates, most likely licensed and registered under two separate schemes at their own expense with the ‘will they won’t they’ at every future budget over whether their exit CGT will be raised to income tax rates (will that be 24/44/49% especially for landlords)? To save the tenant less than the price of a pint of beer a week on the gas bill.

I’d be trying to find the contractor who prices it at £9,001 as you say.
They must live in 🤡 land..

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 13/11/2026 – 16:31
To be exempt wouldn’t the cost of the “improvement” need to be over £10,000?

Reply to the comment left by David at 13/11/2026 – 16:26
I suspect they will insist on new assessments and reports before the 2030 deadline – unless by then the whole idea has been watered down, or even kicked into the long grass entirely (one can always hope)

Reply to the comment left by David at 13/11/2026 – 18:14
For properties under £100k it’s limited to 10% of property value (as mentioned in the article). I’ve owned a few of these, solid walled Victorian terraceds. They make perfectly decent houses and easily achieve EPC D. They were at the cheaper end of the market – the business case for spending £9,000 on a £90k property is non-existent, a landlord needs several times the energy saving in increased rent to make it viable which is not good for tenants and will mean that many older homes (that owner occupiers find perfectly ok with EPC D) are lost to the rental market.

The govt seems to think this 10% cap has solved the problem but it just shows how utterly clueless they are. My last house is due to be sold soon so won’t personally affect me, but I owned student HMOs in an expensive northern city. £10k on a £400k house bringing in a high yield would be do-able, representing an investment of 4% on its value. If any of these politicians and their ‘educated’ advisors had any experience of doing anything remotely involving commercial imperatives they would have realised that making EPC ‘D’ the standard for these ‘low value’ Victorian homes would have been the sensible path.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 13/11/2026 – 18:36
* Maths failure! £10,000 spend on a £400k house is of course only 2.5%.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 13/11/2026 – 18:36
So am i write in thinking there will no longer be exemption for properties over £100k, which would hit most properties down South. I am not sure I trust the assumptions in the article especially with new guidelines and with labour/materials/cowboys you could spend £20k on internal/external insulation and still fail to move from a D to a C. apart from increasing the risk of damp and mould. Saying an upgraded boiler will assist with a better banding doesn’t seem right as this government hates gas boilers and a freeholder rightly so won’t want 50 heat pumps on his land.