EPC changes binned as Sunak makes eco U-turn

Useless and incompetent.

Just wow, common sense 🎉🎉. My tenants may still have a home after 2028 now 😂😂. I managed to get onto Jeremy Vine this morning and say as much about the EPC proposed changes….. most of the others did not agree with me 🤔 oh well. Mr.Loophole agreed though 👌🏻

Good news, for landlords & energy assessors. The only fly in the ointment is Labour pledging to reverse some of these items in the announcement.

So -
Let’s continue to have the most energy wasteful housing in the developed world.
Let’s keep having 8 million UK families living in fuel poverty - that means they don’t turn on the heating at all winter long - like the Middle Ages.
Let’s keep spending £37 billion of tax payers money (that’s real cash NOT spent on filling potholes and NHS) on the Energy Price Guarantee every time there is world energy shock.
Let’s keep on installing brand new fossil fuel burning machines in our homes pushing out CO2 pollution for the next 15-20 years. Causing more challenges for my two children.
Let’s have a General Election ASAP

Does this include Wales for the EPC?

He could have scrapped ULEZ or phased good cars out to run their natural life, instead of scrapped perfectly good car now that had another 10 years in them, khan has cost my £20k to replace my perfectly good eClass Est’ with a another second hand e Class Est, pointless.

Yes Martin great idea let’s continue to drive out landlords and keep creating more homelessness and add to the 150’000 already housed in temporary accommodation in London alone, any idea how much that’s costing the tax payers, compared to how little it would cost if housed in the private rented sector open market.
The Minister told me it was costing £14k per placement in 1992.
There can’t ever be enough Social Housing when everyone wants to be on it. they are not stupid.

Well, as if we didn't all see that coming. The only way to make it work is to make it worth people's while and target money where it is going to be effective at bringing about change. Can we afford to change so rapidly? Can we afford not to? I suspect we as a country are basically going to go bankrupt whichever way we play this, but at least the money saved on reducing fuel use and emissions should ultimately make it a wiser investment.

Too late for me already sold up.
This decision must be the HS2 of the Housing Market

This is excellent news for all landlords and especially good for leaseholders.
I'll still make improvements when they seem sensible and cost effective, especially in the bills inclusive properties I own but it's great to know I can choose the timetable.
If the government want us to voluntarily make upgrades full tax deductibility would be a good starting point. Don't mess about with means testing and having to be on the right benefits.

Hallelujah!!!
My newly qualified Gas Engineer son will get to keep his job!
I can keep my Old chapel Conversion home that my husband and I have worked our entire lives in horrible frontline public service jobs to buy and I'm
now going to hang on to one unmortgaged rental so another family wont be homeless........but if labour get in, its back to loosing all the above and worrying myself to death.
We cannot let labour destroy our economy whilst China just laughs at us!!
I've always voted Labour but NEVER again and although this is so welcome by the Tories I just dont think I can trust them.
I'm starting to look at the Reform Party ....suggest some of you look too, although now Labour is clearly the landlords enemy, tacticle voting to keep them out will be my priority.
Yes OK I'm being selfish...but I'm old now and have worked my a** off my entire life so sorry I'm going to enjoy what's left of my life !
Sacrificing our economy will not make a drop of difference when the world is controlled by Crazed Russians, China and India.
Cheers my fellow suffering landlords, I'm off for a drink!

Fe Fi fo Thumb I smell an Election

The thing is I always had the car service and maintained in perfect condition, the diesel filter housing was done, the oil filter housing done, the Merc’ copper injectors washers replaced so there was no leaks, it nice to keep it in good condition for scrapping ? I might as well have banged it. His criteria 6 years olds for diesels no reference to mileage. So a car with 50k miles has to be classed and treated the same as one with 150k, and he’s is in Charge of us and Mayor of London give us a break.

A little common sense at last

Rishi. Just one more small step scrap The Renter’s Reform Bill and we’ll solve the Housing Crisis for you in jig time

One small step in the right direction. Let's see some giant leaps and bin the RRB and Section 24.

Here's a common sense policy;

There is no time limit to installing insulation upgrades to reach EPC C. However, when landlords come to sell, in the event they make capital gains after deducting mortgage interest, a proportion must be set aside in a green trust equivalent to a sinking fund that can insread be spent by the buyer on upgrades to insulation, heat pumps etc. The same requirement could be expected of all homeowners and scaled by the size of the capital gain.

This achieves five things; the funding for green upgrades falls on those most fortunate who have realised profit through passive house price increases. Landlords struggling with negative equity and high interests payments are either unaffected or significantly less affected.

The money is set aside at the point of maximum liquidity ie when the landlord comes to sell and doesn't have to take investments out from other vehicles and/or absorb additional loans in a high interest environment.

It removes the rush to sell to avoid making upgrades before an arbitrary deadline. This would help shore up housing supply, and actively reduces the temptation to sell as the realisable benefit from the sale would be lower.

It reduces the displacement of tenants for upgrades, instead predominanyly occurring at the beginning of the new ownership or at a time considered most convenient by the new owner

Mitigates (but doesn't remove) the self-fulfilling prophecy of landlords worrying about the value of property below EPC C who would otherwise have sold it prematurely or reduced investment in such properties.

Yes it will result in some sales where no money is put into a green trust, in which case the government should provide a scheme for an interest free loan to the buyer up to £15k to incentivise/compel them to update the property. Mortgage companies could then offer lower interest rates at the point of sale of a below EPC C property than they otherwise would have, given the reasonable expectation that it will shortly no longer be EPC C, with this benefit to the buyer helping to pay back the loan instead of recouped through higher rents. Cheaper interest rates would help prospective landlords and owner occupiers alike.

Thoughts?

Dont everyone get too excited, this wasnt about landlords. The energy security bill is just going for Royal Assent and within it is a Henry 8th clause allowing goverment to ban any fossil fuel burning device whenever they want to, which the press cottoned onto earlier this week. Mr Sunak is simply putting some daylight between him and Labour on climate which at the same time is pretty popular with most people other than die hard greenies who want it all to happen now. Beware the clause means any governement can change their mind on this whenever they want to, no need to consult Parliament even. If Labour win the GE, all yesterdays announcement will go in the bin.

None of these politicians fit for purpose. They are so detached from the electorate it's unreal.
Of course we should encourage environmental incentives but progress into it not force the issue.
Many people have shut up shop on their businesses most small property owners who used for pension top up.
You still can't forward plan because you can't trust Labour to reverse this and use joining Europe as the incentive ( one way or other).
It's time for change. Real change. Ordinary working people can't afford these vanity projects.
New houses should be build to EPC A. Phase in.

One bit of good news, goverment has brought forward domestic hydrogen trials to 2024, so whilst they are promoting heat pumps because they have no alternative at the moment, this is a strong signal where they think the future lies.

Google h&v news hydrogen gov expands trials

Instead of the huge focus on EPC C just for LL I have always thought trying to get everyone up to an EPC of D would be a better target and grants made available to help.

Martin Gibbons has the rhetoric but does he have a single policy proposal on how all these electric cars - themselves horribly destructive of the environment and with huge carbon costs because of all the precious metals that need to be found and dug up - and heat pumps are going to be paid for?

I've been estimated £40,000 to meet building regs and insulate my solid-wall Edwardian detached house, just to get it ready for a heat pump powered by mains electricity. So that's external wall insulation, internal insulation to reach the loft insulation where the roof overhangs too much for EWI, underfloor insulation, draught-proofing, new double glazing throughout, and then another £18K for a air heat pump, new radiators and controls, and a new hot water tank. How can I ever afford that when I am currently making a loss due to high interest rates? And if I sell, how is an owner-occupier couple meant to afford that sort of money, plus two electric cars, a recharger unit, solar panels and a storage battery? Because once they've finished with the LLs, the owner-occupiers will definitely be next in line to be forced to meet EPC Level A.

Does anyone believe that China will take note of what the uk is doing (bankrupting itself with silly net zero policies) and stop building coalfired power stations?
Of course not.
In any case if we switched off everything in Britain, the growth in China would absorb that within a year. Totally point ĺess.