EPC Requirements SCRAPPED! - Our Thoughts!

Could this be a WIN-WIN?

Last night Rishi Sunak announced that they would be scrapping the green incentive that privately rented properties needed to reach an EPC rating of C or higher by 2025 for newly rented properties and 2028 for existing rentals.

So, What does this mean?

✅ For landlords, it means they do not have to fork out potentially tens of thousands of pounds on home improvements over the next 2-5 years in order to meet this criteria.

❌ For tenants, it means that they are not expecting to see any great improvement in their energy bills as promised.

However, we do still see this as a win-win, and here is why:

Many landlords could not afford to make those changes and therefore were faced with two choices:

1. Pass those costs back to tenants over time in the form of increased rent.

2. Leave the market altogether, resulting in more competition in the market, and therefore increased rents overall.

By not being forced into this position we would not expect rents to increase as dramatically as we were expecting in the coming years which is beneficial to tenants in the long run.

Although landlords can take a sigh of relief in the meantime, we do still believe that we need to take this into account moving forward and work towards making these improvements over time as and when we can.

1 in 4 tenants are in fuel poverty so by making these changes in the future we can provide warmer homes for our tenants and increase the standard of the private rental sector as a whole.

What are your thoughts?