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Check EPCs before buying new investment properties - advice

A prominent buy to let mortgage provider is advising landlords to ensure they check EPCs and energy efficiency issues on properties they are considering buying to let out.

Emma Cox, sales director at Shawbrook Bank, advises: “Before putting in an offer, landlords should have a clear understanding of a property’s current Energy Efficiency, especially if it falls below a C rating, in order to comply with the latest proposed legislation on new tenancies from 2025.”

If the new energy efficiency Bill is passed by Parliament, landlords are expected to have to meet the target by December 2025 on new tenancies, and then on all rented properties by December 2028.

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Failure to comply will lead to a property becoming illegal to let and possible fines for non-compliant landlords.

Cox, commenting on new housing market data from Zoopla, extends her advice to landlords.

 

“Locking in a competitive, fixed rate, mortgage may never have been a smarter decision than now. Demand for housing continues to be skewed and is testing even the most ambitious of buyers” she says. 

“Bidding wars, cash buyers and foreign investment are dominating a market that already had its fair share of challenges. In fact, the current reality makes the government’s Levelling Up agenda even more important.

“This interminable demand does fall in favour of landlords and property investors. If they are in a position to add to their portfolio in the newest hotspots, acting now ahead of any further interest rate rises is wise.”

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    Will you please stop reporting as fact that EPC C is required on rentals by 2025/8. This is a proposal and the bill has not yet been published let alone become law.

    SLOPPY REPORTING AGAIN!!!

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    Quite right Tricia. Very sloppy reporting and losing credibility every time they do it. If it carries on I will stop reading their fictional reports.

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    Still good advice to check whether it’s just a proposal or not. I’m doing this as a standard check already. Agents still appear surprised when I ask to see the whole report rather than just the summary. I often see a summary saying it’s currently rated as E but has potential for C but when you look at the detail the cost to raise it to C would be huge. Also with the current energy crisis a good EPC can become a great asset. I’m just in the process of buying a property that has solar panels already installed which I will be heavily promoting when I advertise it for rent.

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    I do agree totally that this is not yet law but i would be very surprised if it did not come in as proposed, i think it very sensible to take far more notice of the EPC on an investment property. If (or when really) this does come in then i fully accept that when i sell my BTL's it will be to an owner occupier (FTB), I do not see them going to a LL as they have a D and an E rating, there is a silver linning in all this madness though, a larger pool of housing for the first time buyer, my children being in that position now. The climate promise that the UK govt has made cannot be met if we do not get the majority of the housing in the UK to be more energy efficient, this C rating is simply the start of it all. I will be amazed if it does not come in........ but very happy at the same time.

  • michael davies

    When and if this ruling is implemented I am going to enrole for an epg inspectors course,its a grand or less.all my properties will be c.why aren't we opposing this white paper before it happens as we are the clean air zone in Manchester successfully so far

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    The whole thing is a joke. I have just spent the night in my daughter’s Victorian terrace - EPC D. It is a lovely home with an efficient boiler and new radiators. Admittedly the room at the back of the house upstairs and down with 3 outside walls are a little colder than the rest of the house - but there are the utility and study the heating is turned down and the doors closed. The rest of the house was warm and toasty and stayed warm when the heating went off - no doubt due to the minimal amount of outside wall. Her bills are pretty low and her house is a lovely home and yet under the EPC proposals houses like hers will be illegal to let!

    We have more tenants and a reducing rental supply and the Govt is about to remove huge numbers of property from the PRS in the name of green-ness. Absolute madness!

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    They only want us removed to fill their friends Build 2 Rent high rise Flats that a bit obvious to me, can they cap Their Rents.

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    Co2 does not affect the climate, but it allows a tax based on a lie. It's a 300billion carbon credit industry created out of a lie. The world shutdown for a year. The effects on the atmosphere were measured by scientists. The atmosphere changed by only 0.2%. Co2 is 99+% naturally formed. Green tax zealots say humans cause "most of co2 in the atmosphere". That's a complete lie.

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    For the life of me I can't understand what all the fuss is about landlords not being able to improve the energy efficiency (and therefore the EPC) of their investment buildings. I, like thousands of other professional landlords, realised this when EPCs were introduced way back in 2008. It not like the Government has sprung it on us!
    Over the years I've been spending some of my annual rental income on improving loft insulation and cavity wall insulation. I've used external wall insulation on one of my properties - the EPC up-lift for me and energy cost saving for the tenant have been extremely good.
    I've recently installed Dimplex Quantum night storage heaters in a rental flat. I've helped my tenant sign-up to an off-peak electricity tariff, which is a fraction of the cost of expensive 'day time' electricity'. Night storage heaters have come on massively since the 1980s and retain the heat all day whilst the tenant is out at work. It's a pile of bricks in a steel box and is ideal for rental homes where the tenant can be less than careful.
    A domestic EPC is an energy COST calculation, the worse the Grade the more my tenant has to pay to the NPower, British Gas (and indirectly the Qatari Royal Family and Vladimir Putin) and the less money they have to pay my rent. It makes good financial sense to drive down the money my tenants have to pay in energy costs. Don't landlords on this Blog understand this? Every single resi landlord mate of mine in the Thames Valley has either fixed-up their houses and flats to EPC Grade C or long since sold their 'difficult' assets and reinvested the capital in energy efficient homes (which can indeed be both older or modern buildings)
    For me and other professional landlords this simply is not an issue and not a problem. Relaxing Planning regulations so I and others can build a few more houses and flats for renters would be a far better issue for us all to campaign on. Domestic EPCs and MEES is NOT what rational landlords worry about.

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