It appears that there may be months more uncertainty over new energy efficiency rules for the private rental sector.
A statement from the National Residential Landlords Association over the weekend says its chief executive met with a government minister and discovered that a long-awaited update on New EPC deadlines would happen “before Christmas”.
The association’s Ben Beadle had a private meeting with Energy Efficiency Minister Lord Callanan to express landlords’ frustration at a lack of movement, following a consultation on plans to introduce new minimum Energy Performance Certificate ratings more than two years ago.
As most landlords will know, the government wants a minimum rating of C for privately rented homes from 2025 for new tenancies )that’s under 18 months from now) and 2028 for all others.
Beadle says he raised landlords’ uncertainty and nervousness over the timescales, and their fear that a cap on improvement works at £10,000 per property might create huge bills for those landlords with the most problematic properties.
“Landlords are not the ‘fat cats’ the media would make us out to be, with almost 70 per cent basic rate taxpayers. However £10,000 also has a different value depending where in the country you and your portfolio are based” says Beadle.
“If you have a property in central London and are charging market rent, £10,000 is still a lot of money. However if you are in somewhere like the North East, where property values and rents are significantly lower, it’s a staggering amount.
“To support landlords in areas of low property values, we have asked for some kind of tapering to any cap that’s introduced to reflect that, an idea the Minister appeared to be receptive to.
“Reflecting comments made to me by Housing Secretary Michael Gove, he confirmed there is cross departmental work going on to come up with a way forward.”
“He also reassured me the Government is aware there is an impact on landlords caused by the delays to the announcement, and understands the need for clarity – reiterating that there will be movement on the consultation response before Christmas.”
The NRLA has been campaigning for a definitive and realistic timetable for work, and a tapering cap on costs based on property values.
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Public sector rewards incompetence , private sector rewards efficiency
That’s why the so called partnerships that the wef pontificate about will never work , quite literally
He raised the wrong issue the uncertainty and nervousness is about The Renter’s Reform Bill.
It hardly matters about EPC’s when that Bill has removed your ownership rights and you are lumbered with Sitting Tenants & Sitting shi..ing dogs.
I know there is a difference between London & North East in London lucky to get 3 / 4% return and hammered with Regulation’s but in the North East they escaped the bulk of our Regulation’s for years and enjoy a 10% return.
70% of landlords are basic rate taxpayers was that before or after Section 24 ?. Anyway god help the other 30% paying 40%, 60%, 45%, what percentage of the population don’t pay any tax but are recipients.
I don’t know about fat Cats but there’s a pandemic of fat people it’s unbelievable, you don’t get it from hand work, you get it from Computer’s & Takeaways.
Mr Michael Gove says he has a whole Department working on a way forward, now the solution is easy just scrap the Department.
Personally I am more concerned about EPC C than RRB. The RRB may stop you getting your property back but EPC C may stop you renting it out in the first place, based on a bullsshit metric!
70% of landlords may be basic rate taxpayers. Personally I find that highly unlikely since the introduction of Section 24. I was a basic rate tax payer, now I'm not mainly because of Section 24. However, basic rate tax payers most certainly don't own 70% of rental properties. The vast majority will be owned by portfolio landlords and corporates.
I agree with Michael on this. My primary concern is the Renters Reform Bill. Of course, the EPC is important, but it won't be possible for some Victorian houses to reach EPC C without an enormous amount of expenditure on unsuitable alterations. Therefore they will most probably be exempted from the EPC rules.
I don't think we can guess about the tax situation of all landlords.
Michael is right about obesity. Convincing research indicates that inactivity, rather than higher calorie intake, could have driven the surge in obesity. In an American survey they found that the percentage of women reporting no physical activity jumped from 19 percent to 52 percent between 1988 and 2010; the percentage of inactive men rose from 11 percent to 43 percent over the same period. Obesity also increased, climbing from 25 to 35 percent in women and from 20 to 35 percent in men. Surprisingly, however, the number of calories consumed per day did not change significantly.
@Jo - we are in exactly the same situation. S24 tipped both my wife and I into high rate band and that has been amplified significantly with a couple of mortgages renewing earlier this year.
Fortunately I'm at EPC C with all my houses now apart from 1 but it's the constant drip-drip of regulation and taxes that is frustrating, and expensive!
And they scratch their heads and wonder why supply is drying up.
EPC is too much, too soon. It's ridiculous that I'm still seeing swathes of our local farm land being turned into ticky-tacky boxes built that have no treble glazing, no heat pumps and no solar. Yet literally hundreds of thousands of pre-war and inter-war terraces are going to be forced into measures that will cause endless mould and condensation issues by the virtue of the fact they were designed intentionally to allow air flow to remove noxious gases from the heating and cooking sources contemporary to their construction. Where Gove expects owners of back to backs and Victorian terrace workers cottages to stick a heat pump, I don't know but I do know where I would like to stick it.
I put electric radiators in properties in 2012 because gas boilers were to be banned in. new houses from 2016 & older houses soon after. Now these properties struggle with EPC ratings while builders are still putting gas into new houses! Builders should have been building energy efficient houses for years but instead they have built to the minimum standard & saved up problems for future owners. Even if the insulation is up to heat pump standard, they are all small bore heating pipes, so will need to be replaced for heat pumps!
Worried the headline says …. 😂😂, erm No ! Either of the 2 choices are fine by me, they bring in the C baseline …. I evict everyone and sell the lot…. OR, they downgrade it to a D and my tenants keep their home. I am really on the fence which I would prefer. 👍🏻💰💰
Are we still going on and on about EPCs? How dull. This argument is well and truly over. If landlords haven’t sorted out their energy wasteful investment properties by now, God help them! It makes absolutely NO financial sense for our tenants to use their limited money to buy Norwegian and Qatari gas when they need that cash to pay our rent. I guess investors with energy wasteful units still have outside loos and open coal fires for their tenants. This diminishing number of 'left behind' landlords must have totally failed to re-invest into their assets over a long period of time.
We’ve all had years and years notice on this one. Running cost calculation EPCs have been part of the letting landscape for over 15 years. The UK MEES Regs have been in place for over 8 years. Not a single very energy wasteful house or flat has been lawfully let to a new tenant for the past 5 years.
As for ventilation - that's easy, buy a 'fit and forget' Nuaire Positive Input Ventilation unit and get your handyman to install it for a few £100s. Nuaire have sold 100,000s of these units to the social rental sector and they completely sort out mould, smells, drying towels & clothes. (before some smart alec pipes up, I don't work for Nuaire)
Change the EPC record, this argument is old news.
Troll
I am SO bored with Martin Chat-bot Gibbons!
Tool
Not Nuaire Martin but Vital Direct Ltd?
I’d like to ask you genuinely if you are confident that the way EPC’s are calculated will not change in light of the government’s drive to discourage gas boilers?
Although my properties have modern boilers, double glazing, loft insulation etc. I’m reluctant to make further changes to D rated solid wall houses for fear of the goal posts being moved.
They need to sort out EPC's. You still ose points for switching from gas to electric and that includes installing heat pumps. Left hand, Right hand and no working together springs to mind.
Martin… I repeat, come back to us 😂😂 you once had an opinion not based on trolling, you can do it again 😆😆. Have strength 💪
Martin
I agree we shouldn't be buying foreign oil and gas.
We should be buying North Sea oil and gas and giving tax breaks to companies to continue exploring and developing new fields close to home instead of shipping the stuff half way across the world and enriching corrupt Arab dictatorships.
There are more ways to reduce our carbon footprint than EPC fiddling or reducing consumption, including keeping things for longer and repairing them instead of binning them.
How many Greens can use a darning needle or a shoe maker's last? My parents used both to great effect.
Mine are all C already so mortgage interest is a much bigger problem for me and my tenants. Yes I know rates had to go up at some point, but it was always stated that this would be slow and gradual so as not to cause a crisis. If it had been then rents could have been gradually increased to keep pace.
You can clearly see that Martin Gibbons does not own any rental property as he has not a clue how this effects everyone (including tenants) if and when this new legislation comes in. To be honest he probably lives in social housing and is just annoyed at the rest of us getting off our a55 to try and get somewhere with our lives.
I think you’re spot on, he has shown a glimmer of normality a while ago, but I fear that was just a blip 🤔😄
i had a recent EPC E rating for a victorian terrace . i checked the EPC ratings of every house in the street because all the houses are the same and i was so mad . what i noticed was that those with a C rating didn t have any interior , exterior wall or underfloor insulation. what they all had in common was loft insulation, double glazing , decent boiler and no open flu fire place . options were a built in heating unit , bricked up opening or chimney flu dampner . thought it was worth a mention.
To be honest, the ratings rationale is often based on what the assessor had for breakfast 🍳😃 . I just don’t trust the whole thing, spending a fortune is no guarantee of getting what you need, best to just sell.
Loft insulation is not always possible. I know that that has been considered in the properties I own.
Insulation, what's not considered is that it weighs quite a lot and their is no guarantee that the property will take that weight. And as other people have pointed out you can end up with mould and damp problems.
While I don't want to be charitable to those working in Government, especially as their politicians introduced the Renters Reform Bill, it is possible they realise they need to revise the EPC system: before they mandate it on us.
Imposing an EPC regime as it is currently, then changing it afterwards, possibly while we are implementing EPC-C will make them look incredibly stupid.
Beyond the normal bounds of stupidity.
Don't think that because it is stupid they won't do it!
Ian. I know exactly what you mean I seen flats in same estate identical properties getting different ratings.
I have a Terraced House with cavity wall insulation and other improvements incl’ new DGW, loft upgrade etc, which had a ‘C’ for 10 years the Assessor this time gave it a ‘D’ wouldn’t accept the Cavity Wall insulation that was done in 2012 by Government Scheme as I don’t have Certificate.
CIGA and other have no record or no longer in Business.
I am aware owner occupiers who are selling have no problem getting a better EPC than a landlord, maybe I shouldn’t say such things.
Michael, re CWI - can you see the drill holes? This should be enough otherwise you need to drill one yourself & prove you have it - too many points to allow them not to give them to you!
Regarding the tax I can’t remember when I was a basic rate tax payer and not because I was making loads of money but the reverse.
I never had an interest only loan, they were always repayment loans which meant I was paying tax on the repayment even though I always struggled because I was paying tax on money I didn’t have it was already gone to the lender, like Section 24 now so spare a thought I have been disadvantaged for decades.
The stupid thing is Councils are still chasing LLs that are renting out properties with EPC below E! What is the point of bringing in EPC C until they have sorted those out? And then lets go to D before C or the PRS will completely implode.
Tricia. I explained all that to him and offered to drill a hole or take out a brick there & then but he said it wouldn’t count without Certificate.
What a nonsense there are limited holes as its the more expensive Polly Bead type that’s easier to install, they blow it in, it fills every nook & cranny even around and under windows where the blown fibre type often get stuck leaving a void.
Michael
Have you tried ringing other EPC assessors to confirm if they insist on the certificate or would accept proof by verifying that the insulation is present?
Michael- As I said above… he may not have had breakfast 🍳, so was in a bad mood, this a D rating, the thing is 🦇 Bat Sh** 💩 Crazy 😵💫
Robert, yes all that was tried even again weeks later until I am ready to explode. He says he has been back to the Board and they won’t accept (who ever they are).
Have you tried another firm? I don't think you need to stick with the same firm and can get further assessments from other companies of your choice.
I am thinking of looking into doing a epc assessors course then working with landlords, it could be more profitable than actually being a landlord.
There could be many big fat brown paper envolopes for the right score
This Martin Gibbons appears to be a right co*k...just my opinion though. 👍
mine as well
Robert I think it will more onerous now he has a kind of set a precedent for me, the next guy is going to look at what he done, better if I never applied wasting time, money and inconvenience trying to get Tenants to open doors.
There are thousands of properties let with a current EPC, I see 14 on just one Road alone where mine is up to date.
Michael
I think it's worth trying especially if they know that they won't get the business if they won't take actual evidence of insulation over a piece of paper.
It's not an exact science and these people just want to earn a living so it's easier to start again than to get the existing lo they're wrong when they have already been paid anyway.
Without a current EPC the phone done me again.
Sorry my mistake that was only one side of the road, the other side has a different post code so there’s 40 with expired EPC’s.
😂😂😂
EPC's only need to be updated when you're looking for new tenants and it's quite legal to keep renting with an expired epc until you're looking for new tenants in a property. No need to get it every 10 years if the tenants are staying on.
I have peoperties with expired EPCs with long standing tenants in them, not a problem until such time as I need to rent to new tenants
I had the same issue with proving cavity fill. No certificate so offered to get holes drilled for verification. No, assessor said he has to see certificate end of.
Utterly unreasonable position to adopt.
Complained to the registration authority, again a blunt refusal with not even an a hint of any justification.
There is no ombudsman service to make these over zealous sharks accountable either!
"more uncertainty for worried landlords"..... This landlord isn't worried... He's just going to sell up... No more worries. 👍
AJR. The problem arose because of their policy of sending it to the Property, Tenants don’t always pass on post if indeed it ever came, same Policy as now when I tried to get a copy of another one off CIGA when they insisted to send to wrong address so I told them forget about after agreeing to pay them their fee.
I believe it was 2012 and the 4 big Companies doing the work didn’t issue the Certificate’s and went out of Business Shortly after making a killing. Some are still in Business under a slightly different name but denies all knowledge of previous. A separate Insurance body were supposed to issue the Certificates, the Contractor’s shouldn’t have got paid without notifying the Insurer that the work was completed and verifiable.
I wonder how many people get so fed up with the completely unreasonable jobsworth attitude of some of the assessors they just create the necessary paperwork to get a few extra points.
The replacement Cert’ seems to cost the same as having an Accessor around to do it, about £60.00 l
I don't believe this will happen by 2025, if at all.
TBH I don't think it will happen either
Unless council housing is exempt from EPC targets I can't see this ever being applied as there is no money to fund the necessary work. It looks more like another scare tactic to flush private landlords out.
I have spent the last two week getting 6 properties up to c
1880 terr - ch,gl,250mm loft ,led = got a c
1980 3 moden 2 bed flats all c
1970 bed semi ch,150mm loft ins.led, cav filled =c
1970 bungelow - ch,dg,300 loft , cav filled,leds = D To get a C cost between £8k and 12 K call secend asseser how said remove PLUG IN ELECRIC FIRE which is not used. After his got a C with no extra cost .
Robert thank your lucky ⭐️ ⭐️. Good luck but can’t see 1880’s house with no cavities obviously getting a ‘C’.
Some are digging up the ground floor to put insulation underneath, laying concrete floors over and gift rapping the exterior, are you relative of Martin, (do the lotto this week).
Micheal
The property is a mid (NOT END ) 2 bed with upstairs bathroom in York with Gas CH , 250 mm loft insulation and fully double glassed.
1 ) On the goverment EPC reg with a post code look at the properties with C, in my post code area the were 8 with a C.
2) The assessors are listed on the EPC cetrificate - go dirrect to one of them. Ask they make recomendations before making out the certificate.
3) Look in the loft to measure the insulation .
4) Fit leds cost £25.
5) Most important REMOVE ALL electric heaters and seal any open fire places.
They have changed the rules on points for none cavity wall terr houses . This is why they can now make a C.
All the best Bob
Currently I am a tenant and also a landlord just due to circumstances.
The temporary flat I have taken whilst awaiting a flat refurbishment makes me understand from both sides.
Being tenant in this current flat has opened my eyes to the world from the other side
I have reported the broken very old electric storage heater to the landlord together with the poor wiring and electrics. Together with a non-working night rate immersion heater.
Chap came round to do an EPC and even though I pointed out that these weren't working he passed the EPC with a D rate. No double glazing in the front windows so very draft. Deteriorating front door letting in water when it rains.!!!! Fortunately my new place is soon to be finished and I can move out of this dreadful place. Strikes me that the authorities are trying but if landlords are worried that their property is unrentable with the new changes then I dread to think what condition they must be in . As this one unbelievably has so called passed!!!!! Crazy world.
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