9:46 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago 15
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A few weeks ago, I warned that the private rented sector (PRS) faces a far graver threat from the government’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) mandates than from the much-debated Renters’ Rights Bill.
Now, two heavyweight voices – UK Finance and Paragon Bank – have echoed my fears, sounding the alarm on Labour’s reckless push to force all rental properties to an EPC rating of C by 2030, with new tenancies compliant by 2028.
This isn’t just policy overreach; it’s a recipe for chaos that could evict tenants, bankrupt landlords and shrink the rental market to breaking point.
So why is Labour rushing headlong toward this disaster?
Are they so dazzled by the likes of Generation Rent and Shelter that they’d rather score cheap political points than face reality?
Let’s start with the numbers. According to Paragon, 60% of PRS properties in England and Wales – that’s 1.6 million homes – are rated EPC D or below.
To hit Labour’s 2030 target, landlords would need to retrofit 2,000 properties every day.
For the 2028 deadline on new tenancies, that jumps to a ludicrous 4,000 daily.
This isn’t a lofty ambition; it’s pure political fantasy.
As I’ve said before, as a nation we don’t have the cash, the workforce or the materials to pull this off.
And now UK Finance calculates that the final bill will be a staggering £36 billion.
Worryingly, it also says that landlords are facing bills of £10,000 to £25,000 per property.
For small landlords, who make up the backbone of the PRS, this is a financial death sentence.
Grants like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme are a drop in the bucket, and navigating its bureaucracy is a nightmare.
UK Finance has called Labour’s deadlines ‘overly ambitious’, warning of a ‘one size fits all’ approach that ignores the diversity of Britain’s rental stock.
Victorian terraces, a staple of the PRS, are notoriously hard to retrofit.
Listed buildings and conservation areas face even tighter restrictions.
Yet Labour expects landlords to magically transform these homes into eco-palaces by 2030, or face fines of up to £30,000 or bans on renting.
Paragon goes further and is – bravely, I think – urging the government to slow down and reinstate a £10,000 investment cap and seven-year exemption to avoid a landlord sell-off.
Without these, they predict a mass exodus, with landlords dumping properties rather than drowning in debt.
A Paragon survey of 900 landlords found just 17% think 2030 is remotely feasible.
If the experts at UK Finance and Paragon can see the damage, why can’t Labour?
If Labour and tenant activists aren’t worried, then they should read the Daily Telegraph more often.
It reports this week of a ‘rush of tenant evictions’ as landlords, unable to afford upgrades, sell up or stop renting.
This isn’t scaremongering; it’s really happening.
The PRS is shrinking, with 20% of landlords planning to exit, as the NRLA reported recently.
Fewer rentals mean higher rents – potentially £100–£200 more per month as landlords pass on costs.
Tenants, already stretched, will bear the brunt, especially low-income renters.
And what of Labour’s net zero promises?
Lower energy bills sound noble, but if tenants are priced out or evicted, what’s the point?
The irony is that Labour’s green crusade could make homelessness worse, not better.
So, why is Labour so blind? Are they in thrall to pressure groups like Generation Rent and Shelter, who paint ALL landlords as greedy villains?
These groups cheer policies that sound tenant-friendly but ignore the fallout.
Squeezing landlords doesn’t magically create affordable homes; it destroys the PRS, leaving tenants struggling to find somewhere to move (about to get harder thanks to Serco snapping up properties for asylum seekers).
Labour’s obsession with net zero optics seems to trump common sense.
Scoring points with eco-activists matters more than the livelihoods of landlords or the stability of the rental market.
Is this the stupidest government in years? It’s hard to argue otherwise when they ignore warnings from banks, landlords and can’t do basic arithmetic.
For decades, landlords have poured money, time and effort into housing millions.
The PRS houses one in five UK households, yet we’re vilified and saddled with impossible demands.
The EPC mandates, combined with the Renters’ Rights Bill and punitive taxes, feel like a deliberate attack.
Labour must wake up.
Scrap the 2028 deadline, as UK Finance demands.
Reinstate the £10,000 cap and exemptions, as Paragon suggests.
Offer real subsidies, not token grants.
Without urgent changes, the PRS will collapse, tenants will suffer, and Labour will have only itself to blame.
Will they see the light?
If they can’t heed UK Finance, Paragon and the cries of landlords, I fear the answer is no.
The drubbing they got last week from Reform will look like a cheeky tickle at closing time when the electoral fallout from evictions takes place.
The clock is ticking, and the rental market is running out of time.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
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Gromit
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Sign Up10:04 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
The Government wants to replace private Landlords with big corporate Landlords like Black Rock. If in doing so rents go up the Black Rock will be rubbing its corporate hands together - kerchingggg.......
Labour do not care (and the Tories are behind this, as they started the process) if Tenants suffer in the process. They're just collateral damage.
Once you understand this, all Government actions fall into place.
Why do you think Larry Fink met Starmer a couple of months ago? It wasn't just to have a nice cup of tea.
moneymanager
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Sign Up10:43 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
History is littered with such as financial crises or marketvdislocation crushing incumbent owners or operators with assets being picked up at cents on the dollar, that's when the government will see the light and the criminal insiders make the killing, the Great Depression being a perfect example.
Hugh Baily
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Sign Up10:47 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
As always the Landlord Crusader hits the mark, but our politicians are blind to the facts.The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they will do anything to divert attention away from the root cause of the housing crisis…building homes.
Gromit
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Sign Up11:46 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Hugh Baily at 09/05/2025 - 10:47
Politicians aren't blind they are complicit!
Andy
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Sign Up11:53 AM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
You're still buying into the flawed concept of net zero, which is nothing more than a giant eco scam. Materials used to insulate homes create more CO2 in their manufacture and installation than they off-set and so called 'green energy' is vastly more expensive and inefficient.
We have among the highest energy prices in the world which helping erode our economic prosperity at an alarming rate.
LaLo
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Sign Up12:09 PM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Landlords are see as having the money to ‘splash the cash’ whereas privately owned aren’t. There are roughly twice as many privately owned/mortgaged properties producing twice the co2 but no mention of them needing EPC C! Buy shares in insulation company quick!
Beaver
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Sign Up12:16 PM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Andy at 09/05/2025 - 11:53
Labour's net-zero policies won't cripple landlords.
Landlords will do their calculations and if the numbers don't add up they will do something else....e.g. sell, move family members back in etc.
The majority of landlords have historically been small-portfolio landlords. Both conservative and labour governments have penalised small portfolio landlords by preventing them from offsetting their finance costs against rents; finance costs that would need to be serviced to pay, for example, for £20-50K in additional capital expenditure to move band D properties to band C or above. The only other thing that small portfolio landlords can do when faced with additional costs (including these additional tax costs which are in effect a tax on tenants) is to progressively raise rents rather than hold them down slightly to minimise the risk of void periods and encourage longer term tenants (as they used to do).
The people who are most likely to stay in the PRS are larger, incorporated landlords because larger incorporated landlords can still offset their finance costs, e.g. to invest in financing EPC upgrades, and they are better at maximising rents to recover these costs from tenants.
So it's not landlords who will pay for labour's net zero policies and they won't be "crippled" by them.
The people who really are going to be crippled by labour's net zero policies are tenants who are probably going to end up not paying 30% of their wages on rents, but more likely 50%+. It isn't a question of labour's EPC policies being worse than the Renter's Rights Bill. The effect of labour's EPC policies, tax policy on finance costs, the RRB and labour's contract with Serco all together have a cumulative, punitive impact on tenants.
It's also likely that these policies will have a cumulative, punitive impact on other areas such as student accommodation because it's probably going to become more attractive to rent to Serco rather than to provide HMOs for healthcare workers, or student lets.
A Reader
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Sign Up15:17 PM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 09/05/2025 - 10:04
Agree - and George Osborne who started the demise and struggles of the PRS through the introduction of Section 24 allegedly worked for Black Rock for a while after he moved on from politics. The Govts and charities such as Shelter, Generation Rent are all conspiring to demonise and destroy the PRS so that the big corporations take over. Likely that Shelter, Generation Rent receive donations from these big corporations with 'invested interests' and my guess is they they are being played and it will back fire on them and unfortunately the people they claim to serve.
A Reader
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Sign Up15:22 PM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by Andy at 09/05/2025 - 11:53
Agree - if the EPC C agenda is so important to them why isnt it being implemented within the same timelines for the councils and housing associations homes? Are they saying that tenants in council / housing associations dont have the same rights?
Beaver
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Sign Up15:51 PM, 9th May 2025, About 2 weeks ago
Reply to the comment left by A Reader at 09/05/2025 - 15:22
I don't know what other landlords' intentions are with respect to the requirement to move properties from band C to band D, but my intentions are to evict my current tenants before the requirement extends to all tenancies. At this stage I think it's likely that I will be moving family members in (to band D properties).
However, presumably, if as a landlord you enter into a contract with Serco for them to house asylum seekers, that can be a Band D property. Does anybody know?