A west country council is the latest to launch an initiative aimed at helping landlords meet the new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.
A support package from West Devon council includes grants to help landlords improve the energy efficiency of their property so they meet a minimum EPC rating of E. Ways to improve the energy efficiency of homes can include draught proofing, roof and wall insulation or replacement heating systems.
The council - in partnership with Tamar Energy Community - will work with landlords to meet the new standards but will investigate those that do not.
Landlords should also expect that minimum energy efficiency standards will become higher than the current minimum standard. There is an expectation from government that all domestic properties should be aiming to achieve at least a C rating by 2030 to reach climate targets.
Other support to help landlords also includes West Devon council’s so-called ‘ethical lettings service’ called SeaMoor Lettings. This service claims to offer lower charges to landlords than standard lettings agents with the aim of achieving more affordable rents to local families.
Council housing chief Tony Leech says:: "The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards outline what landlords need to do to ensure their tenants have a quality home. We've now secured government funding to help us to help landlords to meet these standards and improve their properties for the benefit of their tenants.
"Whether landlords need a loan or a grant to improve anything from insulation to more energy efficient heating, it's the tenants who will benefit from a more comfortable home that is cheaper to keep warm. We hope that this attractive package may also help to encourage landlords to offer much needed longer-term rentals following last summer where we have seen some landlords switch to short-term lets.
"We'll be working closely with Tamar Energy Community and getting in touch with landlords to let them know more about the standards and how we can help them to improve.
"There are approximately 700 properties in our area that may not meet the minimum standards, and is it hoped that where possible, landlords will use this opportunity to bring their housing stock up to the higher standards, which the Government will be looking for in the near future.”
The Domestic Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) Regulations set a minimum energy efficiency level for domestic private rented properties. Since 1 April 2020, landlords can no longer let or continue to let properties covered by the MEES Regulations if they have an EPC rating below E, unless they have a valid exemption in place.
If a landlord is currently letting a property or planning on letting with an EPC rating of F or G, and has not already taken action, they must improve the property's rating to E immediately, or register an exemption.
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We're on the road to hell ....
You may be on the road George but I think I have arrived
David
At least we can afford to keep warm down here!
Must go, been invited by Stalin and Hitler to join them at Guy Fawkes' bonfire party shortly.
Crazy. How can a 300 year old cottage be compared to a 10 year old house?
The whole epc thing is just utterly ridiculous, just another weapon to destroy the prs and replace it with big brother
Let’s see what shelter etc have to say when everything is like China …
Shelter will be rubbing their collective hands with glee as homelessness will have gone through the roof. Their begging bowls will be nicely polished and doing the rounds to all and sundry.
Yes indeed and it's the thin end of a very large wedge. A little bit of research on UN Agenda 21 and 2030, and dare I mention the WEF Great Reset, should open people's eyes to what the plans are. Most people are totally unaware of what's in the pipeline. Doom and gloom it sure is and will the people wake up in time? I'm beginning to have my doubts.
If they are still working to get everyone up to an E 2yrs after it became law, what hope of them enforcing C if it comes in? The number of properties failing now will be minute compared to the ones failing to hit C!
The second that 'ethical' is a prefix to, or used as a USP by any business, I immediately tag that business as being run by bull ****ers.
The biggest help any of these Local Authority schemes could come up with is to employ an experienced building surveyor as an EPC assessor to reassess properties that fail to get the required rating (whether that's E or C). It would be far more cost effective for them to pay one person's wages than shell out money on poorly targeted grants or extra emergency housing to accommodate all the people who will need to be evicted if landlords slavishly follow the recommendations on the EPCs.
Anyone can currently qualify as an EPC assessor after a 2 day online course with absolutely no building related experience. The EPC software is firstly totally dependent on the input data and secondly churns out the most expensive, impractical list of recommended improvements.
One of my ex council flats was originally assessed in January 2011 and deemed to be E48. It was reassessed this year and found to be D67. I hadn't done anything to it in that time. The difference was purely down to the fact the first assessor hadn't spotted the cavity wall insulation. The list of improvements on the current EPC is
1. Solid floor insulation cost £4000 to £6000
2. Add additional 80mm jacket to hot water cylinder £15 to £30 (shame it would only add 1 point when I need 2 points to get to a C)
3. Gas condensing boiler £3000 to £7000.
The EPC assessor actually emailed and said ignore all that, just replace the old night storage heater with a new Dimplex Quantum with smart controls for about £1300.
Why is the EPC report recommending incredibly expensive, highly intrusive unnecessary work when there is a far cheaper alternative that can be installed in less than a day with minimal disruption to the tenant?
With Reply to Jo,
I have the same problem 69 Points on one house , My options are Dig Up the floor cost £6000 or External Clad the solid brick wall cost up to £18000 . The pay back time in alleged energy savings is over 200 years
Best way to increase council efficiency is sack them all and replace them with robots , k9 from dr who 😆
HMO’s to me is just a big an obstacle as EPC’s, very little being said about this on here, maybe you haven’t been hit yet but when you have had to repeat every 5 years plus all the annuals connected to it. I have had to renew some 4 times (2006, 2011, 2016, 2011) and I haven’t being let rooms separately, perhaps you weren’t required to do any yet ?
2021 HE phone auto converts
Poppycock 👍🏻 I don’t care what they say, unless I can receive a grant for what ever needs doing, except maybe loft insulation and a jacket for the water tank, then my plans to sell the lot are still on course. Also it mentions 2030 for existing tenancies… I thought it was 2028 ?
Read again! It says all domestic properties by 2030...which i don't believe for a second btw..
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