Tenant group claims landlords can easily afford EPC upgrades

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 13/06/2025 – 10:44
That’s the absurdity of these changes, isn’t it? It takes away the free will to choose a cheaper home to rent.
A hundred years ago the first Labour government bulldozed the slums and built higher quality housing. Once it was finished they couldn’t understand why the health of the working class had deteriorated. It tumed out that the higher rents meant people had to cut back on decent food.
We will soon live in a society where it is illegal to live in a D-rated house, but legal to live in a tent on the high street. How does that make sense?

EPC’s were originally brought in to give buyers and renters an informed choice of where to live. Now they a being used as a tool to escalate the exodus from the PRS, to the detriment of renters.

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 13/06/2025 – 10:12
Not true. You hae to spend upto the limit assuming it’s £15k even if you don’t achieve the required EPC. This will give you an exemption for some period of time (assume 5 years) before you will have to spend upto £15k again. You will have to keep doing this every 5 years.

The only exemption will be for listed properties (or properties you rent to the council).

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 13/06/2025 – 10:28
The reason for the petition is this:
Labour will have to say they wont spend the money and therefore they dont care about Labour voters living in houses with poor EPCs. An election loser.
or
They have to spend the money in which case it’s a level playing field.
or
They argue that council rents are lower because they dont need to upgrade and can afford to offer lower rents in which case it opens the same argument for private landlords. I would prefer to give my tenants the alleged £240 of energy savings which the £15k spend will save them….

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 13/06/2025 – 11:04It makes no sense to me at all, and never has done. I am always open-minded about grants but I also always finds that I am never eligible for them.
To me, in a genuinely free society a tenant should be free to rent any band…including D, E or F…if he or she wants or needs to. If there was a meaningful EPC system then logically the higher EPC band properties would command higher rents. Restricting tenants from renting band D, E or F properties only restricts tenants’ choices. It also does nothing for ‘climate change’.
If the government was genuinely committed to improving energy security it would introduce the capital allowances enabling landlords to introduce renewables into their properties, and it would permit landlords to offset their finance costs for these improvements whether they are incorporated or not.

Reply to the comment left by Suspicious Steve at 13/06/2025 – 11:11
You know what they say about “assume”?
Here is what you actually have to do:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-private-rented-property-minimum-energy-efficiency-standard-landlord-guidance
Anything else is currently speculation (or, in your case, fear-mongering) and won’t become law until after the next general election, at which point it could well be relaxed by the incoming government.
Personally all I’m worrying about is increasing the capital value of my properties by using government grants to upgrade them, and increasing my rents to build a sinking fund for the future.

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 13/06/2025 – 10:16
From what I understand the ECO4 grant budget is £4Billion (not enough to upgrade all private rental properties). When I looked, based on postcode, I wasnt eligible for any grants. The only option was a grant for a boiler upgrade. All the boilers are energy efficient anyway so that’s not going to get my properties to C.
All my tenants work and are not on benefits so they are not eligible either.
Do you know something different?

Mortgage free means that you chose to invest money in property rather than shares a savings account or any other investment. Do these people believe that landlords should effectively donate investment income and potentially borrow more to facilitate their lifestyle?

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 13/06/2025 – 11:27
I think that what you are doing makes perfect sense. If I held my rental property in a limited company I would probably be investing in energy efficiency upgrades because I would be liable to CT not CGT and because I could offset the costs of finance; I would still expect any competent government to introduce appropriate capital allowances however.

But for many of us who are not incorporated and with tenants who don’t meet the eligibility criteria there is no point in doing this and our tenants would only be penalised with higher rents, higher energy costs, and/or higher taxes if we did it.

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 13/06/2025 – 11:03
Ironically the hidden green levy on our energy bills is 6% of the bill for gas and 16% for electric. So if we switch to heath pumps the government gets more green levy money from our tenants (sorry hidden taxes).