Private landlords in England are facing a bill of close to £20 billion to ensure that all privately rented properties meet government EPC targets by 2030.

epIMS has analysed all private rental dwellings in England, looking at what proportion currently hold an EPC lower than a C rating, before calculating how much the nation’s private landlords are going to have to invest in order to bring to the required standard.

This reveals some 4.9m private rental properties in England and that 50.1% of them currently have an EPC rating below C.

According to government research, the average cost of upgrading a property to EPC C in England is £8,000, which means it is going to cost the nation’s landlords an estimated total of £19.8 billion.

Landlords in London are facing the largest upgrade bill. The capital has 1.2m private rental properties, and despite having the lowest proportion of properties that have an EPC below C (44.6%), landlords still face a bill of £4.7 billion, based on an upgrade cost of £9,000 per property.

The second-largest bill is facing landlords in the West Midlands: thr South East ranks third followed by the North West, East Midlands, East of England, South West and Yorkshire & Humber.

Landlords in the North East are facing the smallest upgrade bill of £517m due to just 103,394 properties having an EPC rating of below C.

An epIMS spokesperson says: “Labour has proposed a deadline of 2030 for all landlords to bring their rental properties up to a minimum EPC rating of C. 

“This is an ambitious plan that is yet to be enshrined in law, but it shows clear intent from the government which means a legal minimum rating is almost certainly going to be introduced at some point in the near future.”